[Is it Discord, that makes him look like that? This close, she can see the shine, the cracks... Is it what the ill effects of the faction energies did to Zenites? She knew what it looked like on Meris well enough, but this- What has he been doing in Highstorm? Has that Yima woman been forcing him to act unbecoming of his nature? Had he fallen into some sort of... of depravity, in the absence of Meridian? His hands... they had never been warm, not even when she had held them in that tent in finer days in Alenroux, but they are so cold now. It is sick, to see his skin flake away from his body along the lines of pale cracks in flesh.]
Liem-
[And when he clarifies the words he had said to her in the dark beneath the roots, words that had filled her with rage and helplessness to hear... her fists quake in his clothing and beneath his fingers. He was cracking, not just literally, he says he should have let her help, but she... What had swayed him to Zenith in the first place? What whispers had been the ones to reverberate in him and breed the doubts he held now- that his world was gone, that his god was gone... ?]
I do not know how to save anyone without killing or dying.
[So she had accepted his offer to help him via knife without more than a second thought. That was how problems were solved... Except he had come back with his hope still abandoned. Because she hadn't given him anything else. What could she? Her words had never been able to sway the people she tried to convert to Meridian's side... all the Unharmonized she'd spoken to had gone to Zenith, so how-]
But I want...
[She wants to bring him back. She forgets to put him back down on the ground, her hearts still pounding, her one remaining eye dilated sharply, fixated on him and the words... that she should have said weeks ago too.]
Come back.
[She wanted him to come back. Not kicking and screaming as she dragged him, not converted with sick whispers or corruption through his Shard. It didn't mean anything like that, it wouldn't stick like that-]
no subject
Liem-
[And when he clarifies the words he had said to her in the dark beneath the roots, words that had filled her with rage and helplessness to hear... her fists quake in his clothing and beneath his fingers. He was cracking, not just literally, he says he should have let her help, but she... What had swayed him to Zenith in the first place? What whispers had been the ones to reverberate in him and breed the doubts he held now- that his world was gone, that his god was gone... ?]
I do not know how to save anyone without killing or dying.
[So she had accepted his offer to help him via knife without more than a second thought. That was how problems were solved... Except he had come back with his hope still abandoned. Because she hadn't given him anything else. What could she? Her words had never been able to sway the people she tried to convert to Meridian's side... all the Unharmonized she'd spoken to had gone to Zenith, so how-]
But I want...
[She wants to bring him back. She forgets to put him back down on the ground, her hearts still pounding, her one remaining eye dilated sharply, fixated on him and the words... that she should have said weeks ago too.]
Come back.
[She wanted him to come back. Not kicking and screaming as she dragged him, not converted with sick whispers or corruption through his Shard. It didn't mean anything like that, it wouldn't stick like that-]
Just tell me how to help you come back!