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[ PERMANENT. ] a (k)atch-all log for kenos
WHO: Set ( ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redsoil ), Bondrewd ( dawnlord ), Drizzt ( twohand ), et. al
WHAT: i actually can't stand month-by-month logs so i'm gonna crush my boys into one perma-log for anything outside of events
WHERE & WHEN: Listed in comment headers, or under the cut.
WARNINGS: General warnings for violence, vulgarity and unethical science. Will update/comment with warnings!
I struggle so hard w/ month-by-month logs, so y'all have to deal with my weird organization...
— [MARCH | SET] GOT NO SHAME, GOT NO PRIDE
redsoil ), Bondrewd ( dawnlord ), Drizzt ( twohand ), et. alWHAT: i actually can't stand month-by-month logs so i'm gonna crush my boys into one perma-log for anything outside of events
WHERE & WHEN: Listed in comment headers, or under the cut.
WARNINGS: General warnings for violence, vulgarity and unethical science. Will update/comment with warnings!
I struggle so hard w/ month-by-month logs, so y'all have to deal with my weird organization...
— [MARCH | SET] GOT NO SHAME, GOT NO PRIDE
ALENROUX
It wasn't like there was anything tying her to that city. Even the stable that had been her residence (not her home) had been destroyed by the Blight roots, and they had not returned back in time far enough to "save" it. At least she has purpose amongst their military. At least she has respect amongst their soldiers, even if she felt she had little from the actual shard-bearers she was supposed to consider her allies in their desperate, pathetic scrabbles at saving their worlds.
But she does not feel worthy of that respect now, in the wake of yet another humiliating loss. How it burns in her craw, how it rots in her hearts, to lose not once, but twice- ? She had known others would be too weak, and yet still she had not killed enough to compensate for their failures. She is not blameless in their defeat, and she turns her hatred on herself just as well as others. So let her be alone. Her heat is coming soon, whether she likes it or not (and she never did). She will ride it out in solitude amongst the forests of Alenroux, she will sate her anger on the mindless beasts that yet terrorize the night, and she-
Will follow the sounds of impotent rage to a field and a god covered in dirt.
Hayame does not bother to try and hail him. Not at first. He is engaged in a battle with a shade that she cannot see, not here in the world away from Communion, where their hearts betray them to the eyes of others. But as Set rages and screams at the invisible figure... she remembers a shape, a face, a presence that had made the hairs of her dun coat stand on end. She cannot be certain, because who knew how many enemies someone like him might have... but the flowers look the same. There is a moment when she is tempted to let spite rule her, to turn away from him in this pathetic display and let him yell at someone else, but-
When he finally notices that she is there, when he does turn his rage on her...]
I thought the only thing that could turn you away from me was mine own word.
[It is her turn to be the one who sounds calm. And when she steps forward towards him and into the field now teeming with life... she crushes a blood red flower beneath her hoof.]
Do you tire of our friendship already, Set?
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Send her away, the specter that haunts him sighs, as if Hayame is but an interloper between what is truly transpiring, waiting to call back Set's attention. You called her friend, Set. You keep making poor choices, and they will keep hurting you until you have nothing left but shame. And me. ]
Do I tire? Do I tire?! What do I have to tire about between us, Hayame?
[ He challenges her to name it, just name it already.
His fingers curl, dark claws extending like those of an overlarge cat, a beast. Across the crown of his head and the line of his eyes, the dark shape of his helm gathers; anything to hide his face, anything to hide the truth in his eyes. That begging, gasping thing that knows, in his heart, that no matter what he does to make inroads with her, no matter what words he speaks — no matter what he does, if it is anything less than her way... it is unworthy. ]
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Of fighting.
[Like she had fought him in Communion not a day or so past, like he is so obviously trying to fight her (anyone) now, like he fights something unseen to her eyes separate from the world of Communion. Hayame had never known what it was to be a friend, she has never had anyone in her world call her by that name, and those very, very few who had used the word with her here... She has assumed they were lying or being flippant. What did she know about how to be a friend? She had told him that much when he'd put that word upon her.
But she thinks they are not supposed to fight like they do. Yet instead of simply ending it-
Another step, another flower trampled. (She could easily step on the dirt and avoid them, but there's something sick in them she wants to crush, to destroy, to rip out of him-)]
Do not hide your face from me, Set!
[She might have seemed calm in contrast when she first approached... but there is snap and fire in her voice again already, tension in her large, powerful frame and where her knuckles tighten and her fingers curl into her palms.]
Have I not already seen you? Do you think that mask will erase your eyes from my mind?
8) !!
[ He both can, and cannot, tire of fighting. The embodiment of war itself will always be spurred into battle-action, into grappling with a direct opponent or tearing into some opposing structure, some psychological frame of reference to send rival armies crying to their homes. He loves to fight. He comes alive, when he fights. Even in the root-caverns below, he was at his best when fighting — with his fists, with his Meridian-bright glory, even in quiet corners where he had fought so very, very hard to prove he could be a way back for newly-minted Zenites.
He could be a home. ( A home requires a foundation. Four walls, a roof. A capable protector, the ghost murmurs to him, they could not find it in you, but I would help you show them. ) He will always FIGHT. But, with them. With himself and Hayame? He admits, it is hard. Every day it is hard, with her. ]
Do you think I regret fighting with you, Hayame?
[ He does not regret, but he does tire. He does, and he does not. Above all else, if they must fight, he would like it to be in a new way. Not the same terrain, the same words, the same arguments. Perhaps, that is why — ( he feels hands upon his wrists that are not there / the dark string of his weapon flowing between his fingers, growing in length as the sands of his own body begin to coalesce into a long, twining bow / he nocks immediately ) — he calls to her: ] I told you, I really am not in the mood —
[ Blood-red flowers blossom along the seams of his fingers, petals raking across his forearms and arrows as he draws, as fluid as her despite the discrepancy in their size. His mouth snarls, frustrated. She will have seen his gaze, of course; she will know his wrath is a desperate, pained thing. So, he must be strong and terrible before her, lest she abandon him. ]
But, my dear friend, if you insist — I will drive you out of here!
[ And he fires upon her. ]
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Perhaps she is not wise, either. A god of war is coalescing a bow from the sand of his body and preparing to aim it at her, a mortal... and she does not retreat an inch. He is not in the mood? Did he think she was? Her lips pull back in a snarl of her own even as she reaches for the bow grip hanging on her waist belt, one of the few magical items she suffered to touch.]
You will regret fighting with me today, Set!
[A flick of her wrist and the bow grip extends into the sort of tremendous, six foot long bow that she was used to wielding, but before she can pull an arrow from her quiver he has fired.
Reacting in an instant she rears up with a kick of deadly forelegs, twisting in a whip of inky black mane and tail and seemingly attempting to dodge around the path of the arrow with a circular dance upon her hind legs. The arrow is lost in the burst of movement, there is a second where it isn't even clear if she'd been hit or avoided it when she returns to all fours, kicking earth into the air as she digs her hooves in-
And the arrow comes back into sight in her hand, flipped nimbly between her fingers and its trajectory reversed before she notches it on her own bow, pulls the string back...
Then fires right back at him.]
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( He wants to cry out in fervor for her, wants to choke on a wild laugh at her wrath and loveliness, but the dance he is in — it feels, like he is standing outside of himself. Watching himself act, while his hands are forced to hold fast to his own mouth and throat, silencing and strangling himself and what he truly wishes to say. )
As the sand bleeds back into his form, he immediately abandons the idea of trading projectiles with her — twisting his wrist to lay the long line of his bow parallel to the ground, before seizing it at the center with both hands. When he drags them apart, the weapon transforms at will; two halves of bow become the subtle, elegant curve of the black khopesh, and he gives one a mocking little spin through fingers and across palm. ]
— get lost already. I have things to do, without you watching me like the fucking voyeur you are.
[ He snarls it, sudden and without restraint; calling the words not to her, but to the side of his own form. The snap of his voice like the lash of a whip, one blade brought to bear against some invisible vision he sees. ( The patient, calm eyes of his brother; awaiting him tiring, awaiting Hayame's fury and stubbornness to finally drive Set from her, or her from Set. Convinced, that it is the only reality that could exist. ) ]
Hey, Hayame.
[ His attention returns to her. The earth below his feet begins to crack, to cave in below the sudden dip of pressure; the strength in his thigh bunching, as he buckles down in preparation to lunge — ]
You're so fucking aggravating, [ in the comic, his season one affect was so much more thuggish rizu so enjoy. ] I ask you to consider some other life for yourself, and you tell me off like it's some stupid fucking thing you're incapable of. Every damn time, your refusal tells me you'd rather go rot in your bitter little hole where you get to be a dead-end warrior than someone who wants to even be alive — !
[ He can drive her out with words, if he has to.
And he lunges, blades diving at her as if to land lacerating blows along any section of flesh he can score a hit on. ]
Why would I want a warrior who's only goal is to die!
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He's changing, the weapon changes, he has become a duelist instead of an archer, but she doesn't have the time to switch her weapons. Not when he levels those accusations at her at the snap of a whip point, captures her attention with his sharp tongue and overwhelming pressure of gathering power. She means to hear him out, because there is something going on here that she doesn't quite understand, but-]
You think I don't want to be alive?
[She snaps back, her own hackles rising as the arrowhead wavers just slightly against the haft of her bow. She had dedicated her life to the path of a warrior as her culture interpreted it, and there was nothing more important than the method of your death, to be willing always to die for honor or your lord... and yet when she had tried to do it, when she had thrown herself into a raging waterfall in an attempt to drag the enemy bound to her along with her into death...
He had saved her. Not only had he saved her, he had shamed her by bestowing upon her the knowledge that in that desperate moment... she had been relieved when he had grasped her hand. She had been grateful when he had pulled her from the abyss and the promise of the end. And then, he expected her to live with that? A part of her thinks Set is just lashing out, just trying to drive her away... but another part of her doesn't. Maybe he truly thought this, maybe he believed it, just as she believed-
He lunges, and she fires. Whether it hits, whether he dodges it, whether he shreds one of her precious arrows with his blades... she has only instants to react, and when he is suddenly in range she rears back up and lashes out with her hooves. It is a risky move, it gambles on her being able to strike him with her long forelegs before he can bite into her belly with his blades, but-]
If you didn't want me, then you never should have given me your blessing in the first place!
[Just because she saw no way to change the fate that awaited her in her own world once they were parted and she had returned to her world... Her arms spread wide for balance, almost looking as if she's opening them wide to embrace him.
Instead, her polished hooves flash bright in the sunlight before she slams them down into his bones.]
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[ He comes to her, dark blade like a shadow and body pushing to the limit to greet her with the edge before she can bring her hooves down upon him. Incendiary pain tears through one of his collarbones, the other dipping back enough to avoid the rending downswing of her strength, her dangerous body. Like her, he is a weapon. Strong, even without his powers, and wily. Like this, with Meridian once again coursing through them, their strengths will meet one another, stagnating at a point that goes no higher than a particular limitation imposed upon them. Another collar around his throat, warning him that he must be smarter, more prepared, than others.
It is not his own strength of arm that makes him threatening, but his adaptability, his intellect.
She crushes half his collarbone, rends through flesh in a spray of blood and sand that collects to mitigate the worst of the pain and shed it from his mind. For at the last moment, he had turned his blade from the thrust that would carry it into the depths her body and sought a glancing slice instead. Because, he explodes. Under her as he is, he fades into a body of sand like a punch and aims to plunge blunt, up into her, and take her off all four of her feet. ]
Every hand I give to you, hoping to pull you from your misery — you are the one to reject it! Every life's line I cast, you disregard! I want you! It is you who have made it so clear that you do not want me!
[ In Communion, while his body is amorphous, it is clearer.
The voice tucked in the back of his head. The hand laced into his, urging him to push her harder, to demand she reveal herself — the melodious and calmly adoring voice of someone else: I know you care for her, but you are breaking yourself to pieces trying to save someone who does not want to be saved by you. Let her be. You are making things worse. A voice Hayame can hear, as Set's own breaks on a faint keen: Hayame, please — you have to want to live beyond this! ]
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[She denies it to defy him even though she has always been torn between her innate desire to live and her inability to see any way to cleanse her dishonor but a glorious warrior's death. In Kenos, alone without a single friend or way out that she could see, she had tried to shatter her own shard beneath her hoof. In Horos, she had thought more than once that the more enemies she made... the higher the chance that she might end up killed so well she actually stayed dead, and then she would be free of the insanity of it all, of the fact that perhaps even the Oracles and the attempts at going home were just failures waiting to happen...
But she cannot allow him to claim she did not want to live, if things were different. That a part of her locked away in the icy cold caves of the mountain that was her field of communion didn't scream and wail and beg to have not made the mistake in the first place that had ruined everything, taking away any chance she might have had to learn what it was like to be free and to love and to know a family and peace. Set's blade cuts along the line of her lower ribs and pulls a line of crimson to spill over her dun coat and she hisses in pain even as she feels his bone crack beneath the force of her hooves.]
What I do in this world doesn't change anything in mi-- !
[She tries to force him to understand, to see that the offers were torture to her. Even if she became stronger here, more magical here, more able to channel Meridian spells or her shard's power, none of that would matter once she returned to a world with no magic, no shards, and no Tree. She would be just a jinba again, a single jinba against an entire war party--
But the sand hits her first. Hayame nearly bites off her own tongue from the sudden force of it, digging her back hooves in to try and fight it... but she can't. It throws her off balance and the heavy weight of her body becomes a disadvantage instead of a strength, and she begins to topple backward in a dangerous flail of hooves and powerful legs. Intent on dragging him with her, unwilling to give up the chance to grapple and bring her weight back into play in her favor, she twists and reaches for him-
And her fingers grab sand. They scramble for purchase in a god that had temporarily thrown away solid flesh, but their minds collide instead and within it... That man. That same shade she had seen lurking behind him in the desert, the one with the flowers, the one who made her hackles rise in instinctive rejection, sensing something possessive and all consuming in the eyes and voice that made her want to strike, burn, ruin before his claws sunk any deeper into the god she had sworn her service to, before his whispers took further root in a man she-]
If I did not want you, I would cast you from my hearts! I would rip your hair from my head! I would let you fall to Zenith without a single care- !
[She hits the ground with a loud, bruising sound, twisting and kicking in a frenzy to try and roll over and get back up, but all of it is instinct only- her mind is in Communion, and if she cannot get a hold on Set's form when he is sand... she lashes out at that man's instead, kicking, biting, trying to grab his hand and twist it, rip it from Set's so that she might crush him underhoof like she had the flowers in the field-]
You do not know anything, shade!
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It stills, when her mind collides with the phantasm that haunts him, egging him on.
Truthfully, it is but a ghost. Nothing that could harm anyone other than the mind of the one who remembers it, but the eyes of Osiris are pitiless and cold. Unfathomably divine, looking upon her as though she is an insect, looking through her as though to say he thinks naught of her soundless fury — that he only must wait, for she will die. And when she dies, the one she called to her will be alone again. ( You will go back to your world and forget me, had she not said, once? Thought, once? As if their friendship were a thing already dying from the moment they had vowed themselves to one another, warrior and god. Their friendship was viewed through eyes like those of Zenith; as a sad, pathetic little madness that had no place in reality. )
In his mind, Hayame's onslaught is something that can push back the shade. It draws him to it, pushing the shape of his mind against her, his hand reaching for hers — the same as he does in reality, folding his hand around her real wrist as he emerges from the sands. As he clutches at her, and tries to shake them free of one another. Like her, he moves his true form on instinct. He rolls, feeling ungainly and off-kilter as his body seeks familiar shape and finds only the connection with her, her hooves, her power. By the time they emerge, he is half-collapsed on the ground.
In mimicry of her body, sandy-beige with soft, red socks upon his twitching hooves. A full grown adult, with the weakness of a newborn colt — he has always been a changer of forms, but this? Comes at the price of a scattering mind, and he heaves for breath on the ground before her, holding fast to her wrist, her hand. ]
— it does not change, [ he trembles, under the memory of her lashing out at his brother. At the idea that, if Osiris were ( here / real ) tangible, she would be eradicated and he would lose her ( he does not want to lose her ). ] Your world. But, it could change you enough, so that you do not go home the same person you were. You could go back better and ready.
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What can improving herself in this world do to change those circumstances? Once the magic in her body is gone with her shard, what can one woman do against those odds? There is nowhere to run. Jinba were stronger than humans, but humans had numbers. She and Matsukaze... they could kill so many. But they would be brought down eventually, and then that village would lose it's only two adults of fighting strength, the only ones capable of defending an Armless, a woman rounding with child, and orphans all less than thirteen years of age. She just can't see it, any future she might have had ruined by her own mistakes, and so to be told to just... just better herself somehow, just fix it, just hope, just find a different way...
The emotions of a god are overwhelming, spilling into her and threatening to drown her senses in his until she is gone, until she is nothing in the face of him, but Hayame's clash and claw and fight not to be lost. She turns the force of her desperation on the foreign power in Set's mind, she rips and she tears and she despises those Zenith eyes that want to make her nothing after she has fought so hard to be something, to be a warrior worthy of a god's blessing, to be Set's-
Set's friend.
She doesn't know what that means, she doesn't know how to do it, but once she is done turning her rage on the hand of that possessive shade, once she has pried those fingers loose and cast them aside with a snarl, don'ttouchhimletgogetback all rolled up into a single hateful, protective outburst, reminded all too clearly of the sick way Lord Miyatsuta had run his hands over Kohibari in the stables...
It's Set's hand she grabs, in their minds and without. Fierce and powerful and desperate and angry, she wrestles with him when he is half-formed, she struggles to come out on top, to pin him beneath her once he becomes solid, but not- not to conquer him. To stop him from hurting himself, to shield him from those cold, dead eyes-
The only one she has left widens in shock when she realizes what has happened. When she sees four more hooves and long legs and a sandy coat and feathery red socks and the way his human-like torso transitions seamlessly into equine shoulders.]
Tell me, then!
[His form had just changed, he looked just like a jinba, her voice breaks on the force of her words and cracks in his face. Her hold on his hand is tight and shaking and near breaking, her heavy body half-straddling his in a tangle of limbs and hair and tails-]
Return to me and come up with real ways that only the god of war can fathom! Show me how that strategic, diabolical mind that vexes me so will come up with a strategy to save a village from a hunting party without my sacrifice!
[And if he could do that... If he could stop listening to that thorny, dead-eyed ghost, if he could be better...
Maybe she could be better, too.]
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she encages him skillfully, bearing down upon him with her own body and wild eyes and silky hair. Protective and clutching at him as tightly as he seeks to grab her, rolling under her to seize her hand fully, plunging his free hand forth to seize her by the bandages she ties tight across her chest to wrench her down. If he put more strength into it, he could rip them in two and find her Shard, find that thing between her breasts where she'd carried ( their loss / the one they loved ) their friend, safe. ]
I will!
[ He snaps it at her, pale underbelly and dark hooves twisted below her as she leans over him. Like this, he can look up — and find his face close to hers, his own hair wild and tangled in her own like they were in the roots of the tree. Like something molten. ]
You will tell me everything about your skill, the skill of anyone with you, the ability of the hunting party, the terrain, everything! And I will show you how to attain victory without dying, Hayame. You will walk home with your hearts confident and unflinching, knowing you will win. You will save them all and atone for the rest of your life in their company!
[ Somewhere across the ground, red flowers spill still, growing from the press of his body even as he holds fast to her and fixes his eyes on her. Keeps his mind from wandering by sheer titanic force, while murmurs try to drag him from her. She is one of the few he has, that could validate his entire existence, and so, he works hard not to wither under her gaze and instead
wrenches his hands free of her
to throw them around her neck and drag her down to the earth, to the tangle of new limbs and the thrum of his own heart(s?) and hold her head to his chest, cradling her even as she forms a barricade around him. ]
I am not going to let you live as someone who can only see your honor recovered in death. You will find it in a full life, a good life.
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But she will have to show it to him. If she is to take the advice she demands to bring him back from whatever place that shade has taken him, then she will have to cup that precious bead in her palm and let Meridian's energy run through it, bringing back that perfectly accurate vision of that forest-covered mountain and the hidden village in the trees. She will have to show him Matsukaze, Mikuni, and his child lieutenants, their only fighting forces, she will need to show him the Armless Kohibari, the pregnant Koume, and the countless children that needed to be protected. Her stable master and his men, circling the mountain, her brother in their ranks, the cliff Matsukaze planned to bring down with an explosion she helped him cause...
Hope blossoms in her chests even though she didn't mean to let it. ... Could it really be possible? If a god of war was the one to examine it, could a way be found- ? The thought distracts her just long enough, it breaks the fierce focus of her pin on his body and at that exact moment... He strikes. She feels his hands rip free from her, she seizes up in preparation of needing to fight him flipping her onto her back, kicking her footing out from under her, or locking onto a limb, but instead... instead-
Her face presses into his chest, an elbow threatens to buckle, their equine barrels align and she can feel... She can feel his hearts pounding against her own, the larger organ in their lower halves thrumming against each other and the one in his upper half pulsing in her ear.
It has been years and years and years since she had heard the thrum of a double heartbeat that wasn't her own.]
Then you-
[He tries to force hope into a body that has none, to demand that she live instead of die... Not only living, but that she will live a good life? That she will be happy? That she will find a place for herself in that village and come to know the joys of being a free jinba, a woman, a member of a family? He thinks he can just do that, without her-]
You will atone as well!
[The screams and cries that had leaked into their communion at the World's Edge, the dark mark on his hand that she didn't fully understand but knew had to be some sort of curse or binding beyond her comprehension... Hayame's teeth grit, her voice growls and cracks with emotion and fierceness and upset and confusion, her lungs all burn for air. Set is a god of war, he will always be a god of war, but that does not mean he can't... She had seen the regret and the pain on his face, in his voice when the black like-blood leaked from his nose and his ears-]
You will go back and return to your son!
[Her hearts tighten at the memory she had seen in the Hall of Mirrors as she lay injured on the icy ground, the one in which he had cradled that dark-haired boy close as he wept in longing for his father. A scene that had been so intensely painful for a woman like her to see- one who had never been held by a loving parent, who had viewed children as the sickest punishment that could be forced on her. But Set's expression, in that moment... that had been love, she could see it even if she'd never felt it.]
And you will rip that shade from the recesses of your mind and burn out his hold on you!
[She doesn't even know it's name, but she knows that she hates it- the whispers she can sense in Set's mind bleeding into his, the strange hum of possessiveness that reminds her both of Lord Miyatsuta and simultaneously... something far more powerful and far more terrifying than a local warlord with a taste for pretty jinbaflesh. Set... Set was more wild than even the freest mountain jinba, he was not meant to be owned or imprisoned or drowned in the sick, crimson petals of those putrid, overripe flowers-]
Do you hear me, Set?
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That is why he holds her to him, crushing the line of her to him. Legs tangling, hair tangling, his arms around her as his hearts thunder and his hands fight to sink into her. Brutal, possessive. No matter how angry she grows or how angry he is, the fact is that they chose one another for this. She demanded of him, and he demanded of her. ]
— what do you think I am doing, really.
[ His tone is flat, but wry. A miserable little laugh inside of him as she tells him what he already knows. No matter what he does, how he comports himself, his goal is to lead Meridian to a victory. It is to keep the promise he made with his child, even if that child — even if that child no longer remembers, and thus Set's vow is null and void. He could be happy, choosing Zenith and obtaining Anubis's shard. Perhaps in time, away from Osiris, they could find one another again and be happy. They could learn it again. ( He would need Horus, too. He — cannot leave his nephew, unless he would have to choose between the two. )
She has to bring up the shade, though.
Running hard on adrenaline and the strangeness of his body, he startles at the insidious creep of his kin's presence returning to him. Sun-warm, verdant green, a beacon of prosperity and goodness that he wants to shrink from, to make himself so small and invisible below the dark gaze of. Is that not why he took Hayame's form? She finds herself undesirable in the eyes of others, perhaps — if that is true, he can be less so in the eyes of Osiris. He can be safe, if he is like her.
It is not true, unfortunately. Man, beast or force of nature, Set is Set. And Set, is what is wanted. He feels the ghostly impression of fingers in the ends of his hair and curls harder around her, hooves lashing at the ground as a ( whimper / cry / plea ) leaves his throat. In response to his own fears, he works his spells subconsciously, and entangling vines, blossoming red at the ends, snake around his back leg; dragging at the hands he holds her with.
— he is not here, he is not here. I know he is not, but — I saw it, I saw his potential. The Tree warned me! He will not ever let me go somewhere he cannot find me eventually, even in Kenos!
[ Driven by pure animal fear and deep, ancient pain, he buries his face into her hair before wrestling himself to his feet. As if to run, as if to fight, hostile and cornered to little avail. ]
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It cannot be the real man. Their worlds are denied to them, the only way here is to be reborn beneath the tree. It must be a figment of his own imagination and fears, and what- What is she supposed to do about that? She can claw and fight and banish the shade when their Communion brushes or melts together, but what is the point if Set will just conjure him again the moment they part?]
Potential is not presence, Set!
[Hayame feels a surge of helplessness and rage as the war god makes again to pull away from her, when for a moment she thought she'd gotten through, managed to calm him-]
You do not get to force me to prepare for the battle I am destined to meet if you are going to cower from a shadow of your own mind instead of doing the same!
[If he thinks that dark-eyed shade is coming for him, then he has time to be ready, just as he wishes her to be. But though Hayame's instinct is always to stand and fight, even when the odds are not in her favor, to dig her hooves in and stubbornly refuse to budge... It isn't working. Even if she throws herself back onto him, wrestles him back to the ground and resumes the clash of the now-two-jinba...
Hayame grits her teeth and hauls herself back up onto all four hooves. He is letting himself be tangled in his own vines while pretending they are the shade's, and so- So she will rip him from the field if she cannot rip the flowers from his body or force him to rip the shade from his mind. She grabs at him, not to drag him back down, but to take his hand. Now, somehow, he has the long sleek limbs of a field jinba, he is capable of being swift as the wind-]
Come!
[And she urges him to run with her, pulling him into a trot, a canter, coaxing to a gallop to try and leave the reach of invasive vines behind.]
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He thinks ( of the last thing he'd seen, before his arrival in Kenos / the haggard, sickly-gaunt face of his son / eyes rolling, mouth sown shut, crazed and tortured / crawling in the darkness ) and knows the one at fault is his own kin. Anubis suffers because Set will not concede to Osiris, and fighting against the god of life and death had only been a laughable series of bitter losses and pathetic demonstrations of how pitiably weak he was.
( Wars are fought with the head, he had told Osiris.
And that thought rekindles within him briefly. Why, why has he been fighting with his strength alone against him?)He drags himself onto his new limbs, ungainly as she drags him forth — stumbling upon hooves where he once had feet, feeling the length and power of his body ( how Hayame must feel, when she is not mired in her own self-loathing ) as he figures out the arrangement of limbs. The way he must push with the back legs and drive with the fore, the way he must hold Hayame's hand at arm's length to ensure he does not collide with her.
He tightens his grip on her hand and cusses: ] Oh, for fucks sake —
[ Fiery, tempestuous. Fine. If he cannot defeat what haunts him right now, he will retreat from it. Blind himself to it with the effort of keeping up with her. ]
Go, Hayame! Let's see if you can outrun me now!
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Once he does, she tightens her hold on his hand and urges him to race her and leave the shade of his world behind. She has things she's ready to temporarily leave behind as well.
How long has it been since she has run beside someone who could keep up? Not just that, no, but hearing the sound of multiple hoofbeats churning dirt and grass beneath them as the scenery around them blurs? The wind whips through her long mane and tail, creating ribbons of ebony streaming out behind her as powerful muscles bunch and release, long legs making short work of furlong after furlong, mile after mile. Eventually sweat begins to froth along her flanks and her barrel-chest lungs do begin to labor, but she is a field jinba with stamina, and she carries on as the fields become meadows, as the meadows become forest paths, her hand never breaking from his and reveling in the double heartbeat she can feel pulsing in their hold, guiding further (farther away)-
Until they finally come upon the place she has intended for them. Somewhere secret and private that she has come to frequent since she began primarily living on Alenroux, a clearing in the shade of the woods where a river became a waterfall into a crystalline, moss-lined pool. As they approach she begins to slow their pace from the dead gallop back to canter, to trot... and only then does she let go of his hand, prancing around the transformed god of war with her tail high and her fetlocks kicking, an expression on her face that isn't quite a smile, but almost... almost could be, buoyed by the wind and the fleeting sense of freedom that their run had provided.
She reaches for his hands again- this time, to try and draw him from the earth into the water.]
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And for a while, neither is he. Chasing her across the land reminds him of chariots in the desert, of endless sand tucked against the horizon and the wind brushing along his throat as he lifted his face to look up to the beautiful, blue skies of Egypt. He had ridden the vehicle drawn by beasts there, and here, he is the one that drives himself forth. Cropland to field, to the untended brush that rakes across his legs and the underside of his belly as he charges alongside her, to the denser undergrowth of the forest where he finally begins to slow.
All thought, save for the enamored feeling he has for this form, purged from his mind. He slows to a manic prance, hands pressed low on his heaving upper ribcage, too sensitized to be immediately still but unable to move quickly now that he has run himself into a blissful frenzy. When he lifts his eyes to hers, he can see — her, as she is. The way her expression sits upon her face, a better vow than any she could give him about her potential. She is not a monolith, however hard she tries to adhere to what she knows, and only that.
Hayame has a future, it only needs to be nurtured. This time, he takes her hands and follows her into the water with the most dignified, albeit worn, flop. His red hair, the flag of his own tail sinking wet into the water as he seeks the bottom of the pool and drops himself below the surface for a moment. When he surfaces, he breathes again. Like her, he is far too stern of expression to truly smile, but there is relief in his bearing and brow.
And then he spits a mouthful of water into her face with a laugh. ]
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In his absence, far removed from the world she had committed herself to die for... This is what Set would have her be. This is what she would force him to share and know alongside her. She can't be the only one capable of being free.
Unlike the transformed god, Hayame has layers of robes- but she doesn't care. The only thing she shucks before pulling him into the water is her pelt wrap and the belt holding her weapons, her waist pouches, and then she is splashing into the water, pulling him in, away from the soil where that foul god's flowers and thorns can grow and into a place such plants should have no roots, no grasp. The pool is deep in the center, the water is clear and cool, they go from hooves on mossy stone and silt to hooves cleaving through the water, to crimson and ebony tails and manes trailing the surface like ribbons of ink, and then he is gone beneath the surface-
But he comes back, and he-]
Pfftp-
[He spits water in her face and laughs. On instinct she splutters, releasing him to wipe her face and shake the drops from her hair, but instead of being angry... Her lips curl into something like a smirk, challenge rising in her breasts.]
That is how you are going to use that body, Set? To attack the only woman who can teach you all there is to being a jinba?
[She seems to draw her arm back, to prepare to splash water back in his direction, without realizing that she had for once just referred to herself as a woman without any negativity attached. (Not positivity, either, but-)]
Two can play at that game, friend!
[In the wake of the water she slaps in his direction as a distraction... she finds just enough footing on her back hooves to surge forward and tackle him, forelegs scrambling for purchase on his withers and trying to wrestle him into a dunk beneath the surface of the water.
In that moment... It felt like she would do anything to keep him there with her. Even learn to play.]
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Swimming with his body is a difficult thing. Treading water takes a little more energy than he has in the moment, but eventually he learns to tap his hooves off jutting rock to elevate himself a little more, and to keep the length of his spine parallel to the surface of the water. His arms circling gently to maintain the lazy drift he accomplishes after he remerges to taunt her playfully, his teeth bared winsomely in her direction. ]
Of course! I have always learned best in battle!
[ His 'attack' on her is pure childishness, as is his shriek of laughter as she blinds him with a burst of water before heaping her weight upon him, shoving him below the water.
Set tucks under her body, hands shoving up to find purchase along her ribs — tickling her uninjured side with clever fingers, holding his breath all the while. He has to wriggle to the side to find purchase with his hooves, to shove himself up onto his hind legs and tangle his forelegs in hers. Wrestling her, forcing her back into deeper waters. To play with her in the water, until they are cool and exhausted and can scatter themselves upon the ground — heaving for breath, letting the breeze dry them.
No matter how long it takes them to get to that point, he eventually will lift his head from where he has pooled it on his crossed wrists. To find her with his eyes and murmur: ] I want you to have more days like this, from now on.
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And then suddenly, laughter bursts out of her. She didn't even expect it, she's never- No one has ever tickled her, she did not even know she was ticklish? It is short and clipped, almost frightening her with a sound she thought she'd never hear, but-
Then Set bursts back out of the water and they are grappling, forelegs tangling, water splashing, the quiet of the shady forest and it's dappled sunbeams filled with the sounds of their "battle". She forgets to remember that it is only the second time in her life that she has ever laughed in anything but derision or mockery. That she didn't even recognize the sound of her own voice when it happened. Instead they clash, they fall apart, they chase, they roll, they grapple... and she forgets other things along the way, too.
Later, lying on the mossy water's edge, her dun coat cooling and her wet tail occasionally swishing across the rocks... the things she had forgotten threaten to come creeping back. But as long as they stay there... they are not as dark, not as immediate, not as suffocating. She almost feels... peaceful, listening to the sound of the birds in the treetops and the wind rustling the leaves. When Set finds what's left of her gaze, the one stormy grey eye that looks back at his crimson pair... She listens.
The part of her that is cold and cynical, that has always had to be that way, almost asks why he would try and curse her with days filled with those who professed to be her friend lashing out at her, haunted and unwilling to be guided even as they try to guide her, demanding while brushing off her demands... But she doesn't say that. She knows what he means, and it isn't that. It's the rest of it, the wind and the taste of freedom and the warmth of his body and the not being alone.]
... I want the same for you.
[With her hair still damp and clinging in bedraggled strands down her shoulders and back, it is easier to see the scarlet line of his blessing amongst the inky black. Maybe she would not admit that to him, if he was still just a war god to her, and she merely an adherent seeking his favor in a place where conflict was a given. But he... he was the one who'd changed it. Who'd called them friends in the first place. And if that was true...
She stares back at him from the scant inches that separate them, both chests rising and falling in slow rhythm. Would she seriously hold her own happiness hostage in an attempt to force him to pursue his own? Were those days he wants for her even possible if he was still trapped by the shades of his own mind? In the silence... the implication sits heavy and quiet.
And in between, she slowly pulls a hand from serving as a pillow for her cheek to reach out, tucking his mane into place until she can brush her fingertips over the strand of ebony hidden in the crimson.]