kenoslogs | [ PERMANENT. ] a (k)atch-all log for kenos

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[ PERMANENT. ] a (k)atch-all log for kenos

WHO: Set (

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

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[There was a vibrancy Byleth was unaccustomed to churning through his blood these past few days. The exhausted apathy from the merciless trials beneath the Tree had peeled away into something almost animalistic in its restlessness, making the populated clamour of Springstar as repulsive as it was tempting. He didn't belong here, some lucid part of his mind snarled, echoed by Sothis's opinion on the matter, so why are you getting comfortable here?

So, unsurprisingly, he fled to Alenroux.

The countryside - a mix of tamed and wild - was far more familiar to him. Even if an alien part of him felt uneasy at being so far from Springstar, he ruthlessly compartmentalised it and aimlessly wandered the breadbasket island in some sort of absent-minded daze. He could almost pretend he was back in Fódlan, travelling through the farmlands of Adrestia, scouting ahead while Jeralt's mercenaries followed behind, and he could even pretend he could hear his voice-

...or... not? Byleth paused, tilting his head when he heard a familiar voice howling on the gentle breeze. Like a moth to flame, he headed towards it, coming upon frantic, crazed Set, scrabbling in the earth and snarling like a rabid dog, eyes flashing and fangs bared. Byleth simply stood in the field with him and watched with blank eyes, as if he was witnessing something mildly interesting, rather than the obliteration of a man's sanity.

Even the gods weren't immune to mind-breaking despair, it seemed. Sothis always seemed so robust, so unfaltering even when faced with complete ruination. She cemented her rage into basalt, solid and unyielding, but concealing bubbling magma beneath, and didn't break beneath grief. She just got angrier. There had to be a point where her rage and obstinance plateaued, though, right? Where she broke like the more fragile Set had?

Byleth felt a rush of disdain from her, drowsy and like a swat on his flank. It was an admonishment for his idle thoughts, and he accepted it with a slight tilt of his head, his gaze heavy-lidded as Set finally acknowledged his blatant existence and screamed at him. Byleth let the words wash over him as water off a duck's back.]

I heard you from the road. You sounded distressed.

[Byleth's voice was, as usual, calm and flat, without a single inflection betraying his true mood or thoughts.]

Are you hallucinating? You were screaming at nothing.

[ It takes a moment, for his vision to clarify the one who stands before him.

Byleth, immovable and placid upon his surface, hiding an array of unnourished sprouts below that. A man that he cannot sink his claws into and rattle around, because there was nothing to find purchase in; it is not often, that Set compares people to those of his homeland, but Byleth is different because he is Sothis's descendent. He holds her heart alongside his, and that makes him something divine in some capacity. Thus, more palatable to Set than any stray human might be.

Especially now.

He is quick, once he spots Byleth, to draw black sands over his face with a clawing motion of his fingers. To settle himself into the hostility of his nature, and prepare to battle everyone, anyone, who stumbles upon him. ( It is not, perhaps, because he wants to hide his expressive face, his eyes and what they might betray, and everything that could give him away for a pathetic madman, instead of just a madman. ]

I told you, [ he utters, baring his teeth below the dark line of his mask.

( The borzoi mask, as Byleth referred to it. ) ] Of all things, I am sick of your faces right now, and cannot escape them even in my private moments.

[ The thin veneer of his hostility fractures, even as he says it. The trailing presence of the one who haunts him, who crawled out of the Tree, commands his gaze. Even as he snaps at Byleth, the narrow nose of his mask follows something unseen — the walking path of his hallucination, half-circling Byleth in study. ( He can see Osiris's cold, black gaze upon Byleth. He can practically hear his 'thoughts', about Byleth's divine core, about Sothis. To Osiris, Byleth's friendship would be a threat, competition. Something to be snuffed out, or used as a collar and leash upon Set. )

So, he snaps ( if he is mean, byleth will be spared and safe ): ] Do you not have better things to do? Like make a mockery of me in your novels?

I don't mock. I write the happy endings I hope you'll have.

[Wasn't that the beauty of the written word, that you could manifest impossible scenarios like that? Byleth had found some solace through it at least, that though he was powerless here, in some fantastical, made up world he would go home and meet Jeralt again, or Hayame would learn to love life, or he would somehow befriend Claude in his world as well or- yes, writing Set happy endings, since the man seemed determined to pull the thorny cloak of pessimistic destiny tight around him, no matter how much it seemed to draw blood.

And Set seemed to be metaphorically haemorrhaging. With the borzoi mask firmly in place, Byleth couldn't help but be reminded of the mangy, half-starved dogs that slinked in the shadows of marching armies, starving and vicious, snapping at any extended hand, be it friendly or malicious. Set's teeth were bared, body taut, trembling, ready to fight, ready to bite, and Byleth, as always when presented with a hurting, cornered animal, felt a deep, incredible empathy.

He held out his hand, slowly. It's okay if he bit, he thought, much like it was fine when the starving dogs bit when snatching food from his hand. They only did so out of fear, and Byleth had a high pain threshold.]

There's just me and you here, Set. Do you want me to show you?

[Because he could see the dip and angle of the borzoi mask, tracking something unseen. Byleth sensed nothing. Sothis, when he mentally elbowed her awake, sensed nothing (and she elbowed him back twice as hard). That didn't mean it didn't exist, but physically it had no influence over them. At the very least, he could try to show him this.]

[ It is Byleth's turn, to aim words at him that strike so sincerely that he feels the wind knocked out of him. Sometimes, people manage it. They manage to cut through the layers of pain, of wrath he drags around himself like a shield and the bleak line of insanity that echoes like misery in his soul. Happy endings? Happy endings! Byleth wants him to have happy endings? ]

— you think, there is a happy ending for me?

[ The ghost that haunts him looks upon Byleth coldly, and skillfully twists the tender thing that he offers Set into his own weapon: Of course there is a happy ending. I offered it to you, so long ago, with me. No fantasy could ever compete. ( Set does not want him near Byleth, does not want to know what he could do to the fragile thing that co-exists alongside Sothis's heart. Even though Osiris is naught but a memory, he is so tangible and real a fiction that — that maybe, even Byleth's fiction could be true? )

Sleek as a ribbon in the breeze, he closes the gap between the two of them. Claws and curled fingers that bite into Byleth's hand and higher, against his forearm. Inelegant, but still lovely in the way that he is akin to a wild animal, a predator that mildly recognizes something familiar in someone that approaches out, but must still bite that offered hand because that is what it does. ]

He is there, [ he tells Byleth sharply, ] not truly, but he is always there. Show me the happy endings, instead. Make me believe in your fiction.

[Set's grip was harsh yet desperate, a drowning man at sea. In the back of Byleth's mind Sothis hissed in warning, but he nudged her aside. He wasn't oblivious to the dangers gods brought with them.]

I'll try my best. [Byleth was always one to manage expectations.] If you're willing to put your faith in me, then it's...

[Byleth turned his hand slightly in Set's unyielding, painful grip, returning it in a far gentler way.]

...something we can do, together. What happy ending do you want, Set? I'll try my best to replicate it and craft a world where such things are possible.

[He had only written what he assumed were Set's happy endings, but he didn't truly know the god's heart - much like he didn't know Claude's, or Sothis's, or Hayame's. He could press his own concept upon Set, but would it truly make him happy? Would it just be forcing him to accept Byleth's ideal of a happy ending? Better to hear the man's wish from his own lips, even if he would have to wait an eternity to hear it honestly verbalised.]

Things made for the pursuit of wickedness do not get to want happy endings. We stand in the way of them.

[ An evil god can only languish in the delusion of happiness for so long, before their true nature is drawn to the surface. He had been happy, once. Distant as he had always felt, his wife had been happy when he returned home to her. His son had always heeded him, always sought him out. His sister was his best friend, his brother a fair and generous king who took his counsel. And that happiness had been a lie, so what was happiness — if not waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The only "happy" ending he knows, is to suffer his atonement, return to Heliopolis, and serve to eternity aboard Ra's barque. Isolated, alone. ]

— I no longer have the imagination, for such things. My happy ending died long before I was thrust from my world to arrive here, where there is a "Heliopolis" that is not my Heliopolis.

[Byleth tilted his head fractionally. There was something guileless about his expression, something so earnestly sincere in his eyes as he gazed at Set's hopeless, dejected expression. He didn't understand why being wicked was such an important fact - why one happy ending's death meant that that was the end of things. Existence was limitless in its evolution and potential, and as stagnant as the gods could be, even they had to eventually move with the current of change and growth. Their pace was just... glacial, compared to the far more fleeting humans that were all but swept down the river of existence.]

I see. You've given up on such hopes.

[Blunt as always, Byleth.]

But humans are stubbornly defiant, Set, and the more you tell them that something is impossible or shouldn't be, the more they'll dig in their heels. If you've lost hope, then I'll do it for you.

[So, you know what that means?]

I'm blessed with a human soul and a god's lifespan. [Assuming he had the same longevity as Jeralt.] I'd say eternity is long enough for me to figure out a way to grant you a happy ending you'll be satisfied with.

[ "Given up".

He cannot think of a different happy ending than the one he had already possessed, before it was revealed to be a lie — a thing shaped by the hand of an overbearing brother who had sought to tether his freedoms and shackle him. It had been everything he'd ever wanted, more than even his natural inclination to fully embody war. He would have given up being a god, being incarnate to protect it. He nearly had, fighting to die and rob his own kin of whatever prize he sought to make of Set's mind and body.

How badly, right now, he wants to drive Byleth away. ( Keep him safe. Don't let Sothis glean anything about the one who might be kin to her, don't let her see the falsity in the god before Byleth. ) ]

If you want me to be happy, then why did you write all those things about my relationships? Crushes I do not have, illicit affairs I would never partake in — I do not understand this, and sometimes it makes me unhappy to think... that you view me as a harlot.

That was never my intention. I wanted to write stories where you can love and be loved in turn. Perhaps that was naïve of me, though, to assume the love you'd want would be romantic in nature...

[It did make him sad that his attempts had made Set unhappy instead, but he didn't let it distract him from the path before him. Most books always had romantic love as the main component as a happy ending, but Byleth knew that such things would never factor into his own, so why would it for Set?]

I apologise for that. I didn't mean to upset you or give you the wrong impression of yourself.

I had a wife.

[ Nephthys. For Byleth, he reveals her image. The slender curve of her neck, the strong line of her smile; though the goddess of peace and harmony, she was not a wilting flower, but a strong-armed force who fought to do all in her power to gentle hearts, to calm minds and urge people to speak, grow, heal one another.

Set thinks of her with the utmost care, cradling the image of her between them as he reveals her to Byleth carefully. ] I loved her since we were young.

[ He can tuck the promise that romance had existed for him, once, into Byleth's palms. The soft-eyed woman and her long hair, her peerless intensity and open arms, always waiting for him to come home and let him rest. ]

We were separated before I ever came here. Married for centuries before that. Romance is — all that I had was for her. What I have now is... I would not make a very good story for you to enj—

[ He turns his head sharply, as if someone has whispered something into his ear, a full-bodied flinch carrying him away from Byleth for the moment. Snared in their Communion, he might drag the specter of Osiris into view before Byleth's mind, as green fingers card through the memory of Nephthys mournfully, the image of a great god shaking his head with regret. I should never have assigned her to you, she put such fantastical notions in your head — it was cruel, it whispers to Set, who covers his ears in life and shakes his head. ]

[Nephthys. Byleth memorised every millimetre of her, the care Set showed to this manifestation... 'loved', he said, but Byleth could feel that love beat still in this echo, the sharp edges of it as cutting as hidden rocks beneath rushing water.

He was transfixed, feeling a strange, unidentifiable emotion as he observed the way Set cupped her memory between them, the wistful longing radiating from him... a possibility, if Byleth succeeded in the impossible. If he could manage to reignite that love, somehow, by bringing back to life Nephthys, even if only in words-]

[-but the scene to soured. Nephythys crumbled into dust as an interloper invaded, raking green claws through her visage, and the gentle, fragile love that Set had nursed in that moment ruptured into fear.

It was instinct.

There was no discernible pause between Byleth recognising the threat to his ally and acting on it. He barely caught sight of the interloper - only did the quick calculation of distance and height - before he lashed out at the invader's face with raking claws, flames spluttering around his palm. In the Communion, Byleth's presence flipped from docilely calm to jagged and molten, like a beast bursting from a caldera with fangs bared and fire in its throat.

In short: Byleth tried to blind Osiris with a fistful of flame.]

[ It comes as a shock, actually. Not Byleth wielding flames — for he has seen, and survived, the connection of Ragnarok's fire with the incendiary gasses within the Beyond. Not that, but the fact that he so immediately reaches between them in Communion, in the manifestation of their joined minds, and attacks the memory-specter of Set's own making. Barely a moment is wasted, between Byleth's posture changing and the nigh-instinctive assault — which leaves Set a little shaken, not by the violence ( never by the violence ) but by how unquestioning the motion was.

As if Byleth didn't care to hear anything from Osiris's mouth, words spoken in a voice intimately familiar to Set, but ultimately born from within him. There is no true Osiris in Kenos, only a memory, and that memory is so lively and realistic — turning over Set's own vulnerabilities and doubts with practiced ease. It is, all the same, his own mind turned against him, in the shape of the one who frightens him beyond measure.

He holds onto Byleth's arm, feeling terrible in one distant corner of his mind for seeking the point of contact as he watches flames spark in the joining of their mind. ] Ah.

[ A startled, strangled sound. What can he say, before such a display? ]

— he's, not real.

[ He knows that, but. It still feels horrible enough. Set reaches out to Byleth's outstretched arm, the one he cast those flames from, and touches into the crook of his elbow. ]

You couldn't get rid of him if you tried.

[Byleth realised that only when there was no impact from his strike - it was a spectre haunting the Communion, not some sudden, tangible threat taking advantage of their distraction. Set's fear had spurred him unthinkingly, but Byleth didn't feel embarrassed or sheepish for his reaction. He felt a little frustrated that he didn't have the power to dispel threats of the imaginative kind, and just levelled a harsh glare where the spectre had been before refocusing on Set with a considerably gentler expression.]

...I'm sorry.

[Byleth lowered his arm, the only sign of his failed attack being the thin layer of ash clinging to his gloves - ash that immediately stained Set's forearm when Byleth abruptly grasped it: gently, more at an attempt at reassurance, his hand as warm as the sand beneath the desert's stone and leaving streaks of dull grey.]

We may not be rid of him, but I'm sure we can drown him out. I can sing to you, if you'd like, or perhaps I can show you a battle from one of my memories? He may not be able to haunt us there...

[ To turn to Byleth could be disastrous. Already, he knows he must lack credibility in the eyes of this man, whom calls him "tsundere" and teases him so ruthlessly about matters of love and happiness — yet, Byleth is without malice. Even Set had noticed it about him, had even told him to his face, about his wealth of emotion and deep kindness. It exists without mercy or warning, and takes the form of streaks of dark ash upon Set's own skin and Byleth's fingertips.

He really had tried to burn the thing that frightened him, without question.

Standing in the field of growing crops, the dusting of red flowers — beautiful, but born of something sick and malformed — actually have been what Byleth's flames have struck. A whole pocket of them withered, crumbling to dust and ash and charred remnants, scalded away from where they would grow and choke the life out of Alenroux's food source. The sight of it — ]

Would you help me burn these away?

[ The rest of the blossoms, he means.

Though his arm sweeps out toward the red flowers he's grown, his body shifts into Byleth's space. He aligns himself with the mercenary's hip, as if seeking to find some sort of solace in the space between one arm and the next. Set is not a small man. His chest his broad, his arms and thighs muscled and posture that of someone who can kill in a thousand ways; yet, he folds a little, into the warm line of Byleth's body, and briefly drops his forehead onto his shoulder. ]

That, [ he thinks ] I think that would be a happy enough ending, for today.

[Byleth had not expected the request - neither had he expected Set to all but fold against him. Even now, full on contact was alien to him, the way something in his chest would shudder as if even when atrophied into near nothingness, his heart would try to skip a non-existent beat. Instinct, honed to a razor's edge, twitched like a quivering tripwire: but didn't trigger. This was Set, a man who had invaded his personal space again and again and done nothing more than grip his jaw a little too hard. Desensitisation works, a little.]

As you wish.

[He didn't question the request. The blood-red flowers were beautiful, but in the same way that a devastation could be beautiful. The colours were too vivid, too sharp-edged, and jarringly out of place amongst the crops, their stems winding in a near choking hold around them.

It would be difficult, to burn them without harming the crops, but Byleth's mastery over the flames came to him as easily as breathing. Whether it be forcing the fire beneath the earth to roar to the surface, or manipulating heat to boil water without flame, Byleth's precise control was without peer. It was what he defaulted to, when cornered, when in mid-strike, when thinking on how best to disperse the wall of shields before him: flames were purifying, protective and fierce. They had never failed him, never burned him.

He extended his free arm, and a magic circle unspooled before his palm, the divine Crest of Flames flaring like a firebird's wings. Beneath the circle's gentle glow, the crimson blossoms simply... crumbled to ash.

A glimmer of embers, perhaps, but they burned without fire, breaking up under the gentle breeze that swept over the field, carrying the ashes up in a swirl like a mockery of snow. He burned them, right down to the choking roots tangled up under the dirt, even if this was exhausting and made his head pound from the effort of it... but he was satisfied with the result.

The magic circle flickered out and he lowered his arm. The field around them was now dusted in a very fine layer of ash. Some of it dusted their clothes, skin and hair, a smoky scent thick in the air. To Byleth, it was the norm. Comforting.]

...ash is good fertiliser. [his voice was soft, but it still sounded too loud in the eerie stillness. The blossoms had burned soundlessly.] It'll serve these crops well, at least.

[ It works out, for the better. The flowers that Set has grown through his Meridian-gifted power and his own divinity ought to not be left to strangle and choke the life of the crops of Alenroux; they were poisonous things, born from centuries of effort on Osiris's part, fashioned from Set's own — well, body. They would do no good for anyone, let alone the land upon which they were growing. To see them burnt away by Byleth's skillful application of flame, to see the ash that has been left behind in its wake?

That loosens the knot in his stomach. In turn, he is able to loosen his grasp on Byleth, and put an arm's length of distance back between them, though he keeps his hand clutching loosely at Byleth's upper arm — to steady him? to steady himself? ]

Good work.

[ "Thank you", he might actually mean. ]

Thank you.

[It's okay, Byleth will say it for them both. He stayed in place for a moment, watching the ash slowly settle as he took a few deep, bracing breaths. Magic came to him easily, it was just... such intensely precise work like that was enough to stretch his concentration to a point where his brain felt like it had been turned inside out. It would've been easier to simply scorch the surrounding area, but it would've been a shame to burn the crops as collateral.

Even so...

He lifted his free hand to rub at his temple, leaving smudges of dark grey against his skin and staining his hair. He'll need to find somewhere comfortable to lie down for a bit.]

It exhausted me more than it should've, though. The price of poor sleep. [He lowered his hand, turning slightly towards Set.] Is there anything else I can do to aid you, Set? I'm always happy to help you.

You are, aren't you.

[ Happy to help him. For all his idiosyncrasies, Byleth is a deeply honest man — someone without ulterior motive, and a gentle heart that Set had already recognized. It is why he finds it easier to remain calmed in his presence, and to feel some innate desire to continue to monitor Byleth. To watch over him, now that the flames have taken the sinister vines and their red, red flowers and the lingering presence of his tormenter is at a distance.

He fits his hands around Byleth's elbow, as if to support him and draw him aside. Away from the middle of the field and towards one of Alenroux's many small patches of shade, urging him without words to sit down there. ]

— you can rest, now. And later, you can tell me why your sleep is poor — if we are to take one another as friends, then you need not hide your needs from me. Clearly, you have now seen me at... a low. Rest for now, though. I will return to work, and no harm will come to you while I am here.

[Byleth didn't resist Set hustling him over to the shade of a nearby tree, seating himself heavily amongst the grassy roots and leaning back against the trunk. Set stood over him in silhouette, the sun framing his hair like a brilliant halo - it made the red strands seem as bright as rubies - but Byleth didn't feel uncomfortable at him towering over him, as he would with most people.]

Thank you, Set. You're too kind.

[No matter what the man said or believed, or how his pain punctured through him like cruel thorns and drew blood from those around him, Byleth knew that Set was kind. It was rough and coarse, and buried under several layers like a particularly sandy onion, but the kindness was there, thoughtlessly offered without expectation of reciprocation. Perhaps one day it may backfire on Byleth, and he'll gain yet another scar on his back from an unforeseen betrayal, but he'll cross that bridge if it ever came.]

I'll rest easier, knowing you're watching out for me. [He meant it too.] Try not to work too hard, though. If you feel like you need to rest, you can sit with me a while as you recover.

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[ PERMANENT. ] a (k)atch-all log for kenos

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