abraxaslogs | [closed] i've got a heart full of sorrow, chest that feels hollow

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[closed] i've got a heart full of sorrow, chest that feels hollow

Who: Altaïr & Hilda
When: A few days after everyone returns from the alternate timeline
Where: A rocky outcrop/cave entrance in the badlands
What: 'Brother' & 'sister' talk some heavy shit

[Altaïr isn't actually sitting in a cave when Hilda arrives.

The cave itself has been a decent place to rest, true. The front cavern is fairly shallow, but there's space enough to keep him dry and unnoticed. But he is not actually hiding himself away from the world by going beneath its land; he simply needed a place away from everyone, to reflect and think, and a safe place to camp for a night or two.

When his sis—when his friend finally makes her way there, she finds him not in it but above it, hands clasped and resting on his knees as he sits very still. He almost looks like he could be meditating, but Altaïr is not at peace.]

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[ Contrary to his very boring and honestly rude "no" to her offer to bring him things, Hilda does so anyway. Already infamously known for overpacking to be prepared for anything, she does the same for him. The saddle bag on the horse not only has a very comfortable looking blanket strapped on top of it but also seems packed to the brim with all the creature comforts someone like Altaïr would never need.

Is it a blatant poke in the side for choosing to camp out in a cave? Or is it her way of showing that she cares? Honestly, it could be both. Either way, when she arrives she guides the horse to the top of the cave sliding gracefully off. ]

That was a much longer trip than I expected. Did you walk here?

[ After all there's no horse in sight. (But also, it wasn't that long of a ride.) ]

Yes.

[He'd considered taking a horse, but he'd needed to be alone, without even a non-sapient creature nearby.]

I needed some time to myself.

[That was then and this is now. Truly, he can't say he doesn't still need that time, but here Hilda is, and even if she'd forced the point, they both know he could have avoided this. Everything is a choice.]

It's not like horses can talk.

[ It's a muttered, bratty thing said under her breath but one that she let's drop. What did it say about him - and them - if he didn't even want a horse out here but had begrudgingly given into her bullying? The answer is stupidly obvious in her mind, but it's not one that she wants to entertain at the moment for fear of embarrassing herself.

Instead she takes another rolled up blanket - a picnic one - and rolls it out onto the ground before planting herself beside him. ]

If you wanted silence, you definitely chose the wrong person to send your location to. You know how much I hate the quiet.

I know.

[Maybe he's had enough of it. Maybe his need for it is still there but other needs are greater. Maybe he's just willing to trust her and her insistence that she join him out here. He can't say what the answer is; for the first time in a long while, Altaïr feels lost.]

I feel as though I know you much better than I did before we entered the crater. Even if none of it was real.

[ It always takes Hilda a minute to settle into a seat but all of those little fussy motions come to a halt as he speaks. A myriad of emotions flash through her as she stares at him, unable to really untangle how she feels about what he's just said.

Some of that is a jumbled mess of how she doesn't know how she feels herself about everything they've gone through - but at least they seem to be on the same page about one thing. ]

I feel the same way. I don't really know what to make of everything that happened - I've been trying not to think about it if I'm being honest. That wasn't me but it also wasn't me.

[ Thinking about herself as a goddess of performers feels like a sure fire way to develop a complex that she doesn't need. But what's more fluster inducing is the thought of bringing up the topic of them being siblings and everything they'd gone through together. Idly her fingers pick at some non-existent dirt on the blanket. ]

Aside from that...how are you feeling about everything?

I've thought of little else.

[He and Hilda have different methods of coping, but he understands her urge to avoid, evade, turn her mind away from what happened as best she can. But it was too big for him to do the same; even if he closes his eyes to the details, the totality of what they experienced looms too large in his mind.]

I am...not feeling well.

[Which is an alarming admission, coming from him.]

[ She isn't terribly surprised to hear that. Eight hundred years aside (and she really has been trying not to think so hard about those false memories), he's aways seemed the sort who was always thinking about something even if he was a man of few words.

Why the Singularity had sought to make them believe that they were siblings is beyond her. At least she and Holst had the ridiculous trait of talking a mile a minute.

But that's why she knows that he means it when he says he isn't doing well. As her gaze rises to him once more with deep seeded worry, something else emerges too. An overprotectiveness that she'd only ever felt for Holst. ]

What do you mean? Did something else happen in there?

Here and now, I'm a mortal man, Hilda. This is how I should remain.

[He doesn't relish the thought of death, even if it sometimes seems there will never be enough time to do all he wants to do before it comes. But he is also not afraid of it; as easily as he deals it, how could he be without proving himself a rank hypocrite?

But it seems that in this other life, death had been afraid of him. Or at least had no interest in their paths crossing.]

But there, I was more than that. I took things too far. I gave judgment that should not have been mine to give.

I hurt people who came to worship me.

[ What he's chosen to share with her about what his brotherhood did in his world had been undeniably alarming at first. But in the end she believed that he wouldn't kill for the sake of killing. That wasn't the man that she had come to know.

Which is why she understands why everything that they had experienced really is shaking him to his core. She considers saying that none of those people were real, but ultimately doesn't, knowing full well that it wouldn't bring any solace. Real or not, that doesn't change how any of them likely feel. ]

You weren't the only one though. I think all of us did things we regret to our followers. And I know that some of that was something we did together - so you aren't the only one who has to shoulder the burden, Altaïr.

Edited 2024-05-31 05:24 (UTC)

[His first instinct is to tell her 'It isn't the same.' The words rise up; he can practically taste them before he forces himself to swallow them instead. A;taïr is better at listening these days and he can do that now.

It doesn't matter that he expected better of himself. She did, too, he's sure.]

There were times I felt very alone in that reality. [He lifts his head and looks over at her.] Thank you for proving that wasn't the case. Then and now.

[The admission comes easier than it normally would, especially considering he'd run off to hide from her and others. But even 800 false years still had an impact, along with the two real ones before them.]

[ His admission is surprising, if only because she knows this man well and had gotten to know a version of him - a version that he isn't proud of - well too. They'd had their fair share of bumps in the road, as is expected of anyone who has to spend time with someone for that long.

Another realization comes at the tail end of her surprise. None of that matters. ]

You're my brother. Of course I'm going to stay by your side. [ There's a pause, her eyes widening as she realizes what she's said ] Oh. I mean you're like my brother. Not actually my brother.

[ Somewhere Holst was suffering from extreme stomach pains. ]

[The hesitation and retreat from her declaration don't go unnoticed. Normally, he would let them pass without comment.

Things aren't normal. They haven't been in a long time. At least, that's how it still feels.]

I was an only child. My mother died when I was born and my father never took another wife.

[He can't remember if he's told her this before, not in reality. How can he, when he remembers so much more of times they've spent together?]

I am glad that I was able to gain you as a sister.

[ Hilda half expects him to ignore her slipup just like he had so many other times before. Affection between the two of them was a rare thing if only because neither were particularly comfortable with it at least when it came to the other. Despite her tactile nature, she wasn't so ignorant that she'd bulldoze her tendencies at the risk of someone else's comfort.

Instead he says two things that surprise her: a fact about him that she swears sounds familiar in the same way the dream had and his following admission.

She feels a lump form in her throat and she draws in a quick breath telling herself to keep it together. But how can her eyes not begin to water at the sentiment that she knows is so meaningful and genuine coming from him? Normally she'd ask if he meant it, but she knows he does. The same feeling she'd felt in the dream is the same as she feels know.

It's what makes her lean into him, resting her head against his shoulder. ]

[His head knows that he should reject anything he supposedly gained in the false life he'd lived. He is an Assassin; doesn't his entire life call upon him to pierce the veil of false beliefs, not allow it to fall over him without a single objection?

But aren't friendship, love and regard for who people are, not just the role they can play to further noble goals, worth accepting — no matter how these things come about? He is not Al Mualim. He cannot cling to doctrine and dogma from a place and time that would consider the experiences he's had here to be unimaginable.

So it's anything what rejection when he lifts his arm and sets it around her shoulders, securing her place by his side. It feels right to his heart, whatever his head says.]

[ Telling herself that she should just dismiss everything that happened to them over the course of those three weeks is easier said than done. Because while the memories are hazy and dreamlike in nature and while her body hadn't physically left that crater, her heart remembers. It clings to the feelings that she had developed for people and her heart is just as stubborn as she is. She knew that about herself. It's silly for her to think that she could pretend them away. But she had been so afraid that she'd be rejected by those she holds close - Altaïr amongst them.

It only begins to dawn on her now that the guilt she had felt before had been because she had forgotten Holst. But it's more than that. It was that she felt guilty for putting that expectation on Altaïr. So when she feels his arm wrap around her to draw her close, allowing her to stay there beside him, to be someone he considered a sister is what finally makes her start to cry with relief and all the emotions she had held in.

Through her tears she can't help but let out a watery, happy laugh. ]

I hope you know that there's no take backs.

[He's not accustomed to dealing with tears up close. He'll do so anyway.]

Only if you do as well.

[This goes both ways. But he's certain she knows that already — it doesn't really need to be said. There's an understanding that wasn't there before, a connection that wouldn't have such a profound effect on the both of them if it weren't mutual.

Ibn-La'Ahad. His name means "son of none." But here and now, he can be the brother of one.]

I do not like who I became in that imagined lifetime. I do not want to become that man again. [But.] You were one of the bright points in a world that felt very dark.

[ Sorry, brother. This is what you get having Hilda as a sister. The tears (happy, sad, angry) are part and parcel of that. Still, the fact that he doesn't pull away means more to her than she thinks he'd care for her to express.

His response has her laughing again, this time with a little more feeling behind how this feels so absurd but so right at the same time. She loops her arm through his to give him a squeeze. Suddenly there's a cheeky, teasing lilt to her voice. ]

Is it because my hair is pink? Is that why?

That must be it.

[What that a joke? A quiet tease? Surely that is stronger evidence than anything else that this experience changed him.

The physical affection still feels slightly odd to him, though, so perhaps he hasn't changed all that much. Or it's still in process. Either way, he can live with it.]

[ The way she lapses into comfortable silence after is also an indication of how their time in the dream had changed her too. There's no discomfort, no urgency to try and fill it with mindless chatter. Instead she stays there, allowing the sound of the desert around them breathe.

After her tears have dried she rights herself and releases him. ]

Are you still planning on staying out here for a little while?

I was.

[Until and past the point she'd arrived here, if he's being honest. And he sees now reason to stop being that tonight.]

But perhaps I should return. There are other people I should speak with. Diana, Claude...others.

[ Hilda begins to right herself because regardless of whether or not Altaïr chose to stay here longer, she was planning on going back.

The mention of Claude and Diana has her ears perking some as she goes to start readying the horse to leave. They had had their fall out over Claude during their god years and she didn't want to speak about it more. God or not, Hilda trusts that both men in question are likely to assume correctly that how she felt about their dalliance as gods is similar to what she would feel now.

Thankfully it's not something that she has to dwell on because there's a mention of another name. Maybe it's a trick of the light but there's definitely a glint of mischief in Hilda's eyes as she gives him a pointed look. ]

Diana, hmmm?

[ In true little sister behaviour her lips begin to curl into a teasing, shit-eating grin. ]

Marshy is strong enough to carry the both of us back to Cadens but I hope you know that if you're planning on riding on his back with me, I want to hear all about you and Diana. Or maybe, I could offer a womanly perspective on it?

[He wouldn't mind walking back — he'd made the trek here to begin with after all, and it hadn't been the most arduous journey he'd ever made. But a ride would be more welcome.]

If you're offering, I'll take the ride.

[He squints at her. He sees the look on her face.]

Do I want to know your perspective?

[He is sure she will provide it regardless.]

[ Once he's up she makes quick work of rolling up the blanket that she's set down. Or rather, Perry does. A ghostly hand shakes the dust and sand off before it's tucked neatly back into one of the saddlebags. With ease Hilda hoists herself up onto the horse assuming that she's going to take the front position - because why wouldn't she? ]

I don't know, do you? Will you be able to handle the teasing?

[ Her voice is sing-songy and full of mirth. ]

I do remember not believing that you managed to get together with an actual goddess but we never actually talked about how you felt about her.

[ It's sort of an opportunity for him to open up about it. But they've already spoken about so much and knowing that he hasn't spoken with Diana yet, she respects that it's something he might want to discuss with her first before talking about it with anyone else. ]

Whatever you talk with her about I think being honest is something she'll appreciate. [ A more sincere smile flickers to her face. ] You're a good man with a good heart. Wherever it lands, she'll be lucky to have you in her life.

[The patient sigh he offers as he climbs up behind her is enough to say that yes, he will, because he expects it, because he knows her — but the specifics of her continued teasing gives him pause and makes him raise an eyebrow before it occurs to him.

Oh. She thinks it only happened in that other reality.]

Hilda.

[How to put it.]

It was not a new state of affairs.

[Aside from the god thing. And then only on his part, apparently.]

Edited 2024-07-16 03:03 (UTC)

[ She's already up on the horse when he drops a truth that she hadn't been expecting. There's a long stretch of silence filled only by the slight snort of a horse. ]

...You're. With Diana?

[ This isn't a joke. She can tell it's the truth. And while she is undoubtedly happy for the both of them in whatever capacity 'with' entails, the first thing that comes to mind is complete and utter disbelief. She gives him a little shove against his chest but not enough to push him off the horse. ]

What?! Since when? Actually - you know what, I don't want to know. I don't need to know. I can't believe you're only telling me now!

[Altaïr frowns for just a moment, torn between feeling offended and — well, she does have a point, so he shrugs.]

We are friends. We've enjoyed one another's company [in a manner of speaking] for a year or so. I didn't consider it anyone else's business.

[It's not as though they've staked a claim on one another.]

A year!?

[ Despite her earlier insistence that she clearly didn't care, the outburst following his admittance says otherwise. She twists around giving him another shove to his chest, this time actually trying to unseat him even though she knows it may be a fruitless endeavor despite her own somewhat inhuman strenghth. ]

Are you kidding me? Go lick rust! Get off the horse, you can walk the rest of the way back, you jerk.

[The pushing gets her nowhere. Hilda is not weak, but Altaïr is bigger and stronger and an experience rider who knows how to hold tightly onto a mount with his legs.

(He does consider letting her do it, though, but only for a moment.)]

Some things are allowed to stay private, Hilda.

[He grins and pats her shoulder.]

It's all right. I know you'll forgive me. We're family now.

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[closed] i've got a heart full of sorrow, chest that feels hollow

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wrap soon? 💕

yeye

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