abraxaslogs | [OPEN] cold wind blowing beneath my wings

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[OPEN] cold wind blowing beneath my wings

WHO: Estinien Wyrmblood and YOU
WHAT: Estinien is back in the real world and not particularly happy about it, at least until he manages to meditate his way into the Horizon again. Meanwhile, his cellmate Relena goes missing and he gets very angry about it.
WHERE: In prison and also the Horizon.
WHEN: From July 24th to August 12th
NOTES: If you'd like something more specific with Estinien feel free to hit me up on the Discord or at

quixocalypse.

I➔ And Back Again

The descent from the Horizon feels akin to being summoned back to a dead body, both in terms of power and relative comfort. The aches and pains of his imprisonment return with merciless acuity. While his energy had been boundless in that higher realm, here it is reduced to scraps as the ravages of hunger and exhaustion weigh down on him. It's the contrast itself that is the most jarring, along with the fact that he wakes up in shackles.

Yes, the fear that had been haunting his subconscious his entire stay in the Horizon has come back into context. This is what he'd been desperate to escape, and now that he's returned to it, he feels no less dread. Even worse is the fact that Ambrose seems perfectly chuffed with himself for what they've experienced.

Upon being returned to prison, he wonders what it was all for. Any connection to the power of the Horizon seems to be gone, and given that somehow accessing the Singularity was his one hope of escape, their return leaves him in a rather dire mood. To make matters worse, it seems that the guards haven't forgotten about his aggression on the way to the portal, and also on the way back. They decide to deny him food entirely on his first day back to his cell. He should be glad he's not been simply put back into solitary, something in his gut says.

The atmosphere around him is one of miserable defeat, during those first few days back in prison. Even during the recreational hours, his accumulated frailty can be seen. As much as he tries to flex his muscles, he soon finds himself slumping against the rec yard wall. He's tired, starving, and clinging more and more tenuously to any sort of hope. Was the Horizon an escape at all, when it was all according to the High Mage's plan?

II➔ To The Horizon

Fortunately for him, his obsession driven life means he is not one accustomed to giving up for good. It takes only a couple of days before he realizes the futility in surrender - especially when he's hardly explored all his options. The Horizon was something experienced outside the body, was it not? So why not see if the connection remains?

He spends the rest of that day attempting to sink back into the Singularity's power, carefully clearing his thoughts. He is used to stilling his mind from years of being connected to Nidhogg's eye, but it has been a while since such intense concentration was required of him. He's not sure when it happens, but finally, something clicks.

Instead of awakening on his prison mattress, he wakes in a field of rolling grass - and not long after, a pile of snuffling karakul. Everything comes rushing back. He'd remembered his time in the Horizon, but something about experiencing it again reforges the connection between those two states of mind: the mind of the dragon, and the mind of his true self. To think, that all of this had been made by his hand.

He frees himself from the overzealous affection of his flock, a lifetime of memories allowing him to better keep his reflexive fear of them at bay. He wanders the valley for a while, his memories casting all he sees in a new light. What did it mean, that his unshackled soul decided to build this? Was this what he wanted, after everything? He comes along the long bit of housing within his domain, a single-family household carefully crafted of timber, but left completely empty inside. For all the time he'd spent in the valley, he spent little time dwelling on this creation. He thinks he can understand, the emptiness of its walls resonating with a similar emptiness in his heart.

He traces his fingers along the windows, across the door, but he doesn't dare open it. Instead, he decides he'd rather go somewhere else.

Without his memories, he hadn't been particularly curious about other people's domains, mostly interested in his own creations and keeping them safe. Now, though, a lifetime of experiences draws him to the outside world. He wonders if anyone else has reawakened to this place. He traverses the Horizon on foot this time, and occasionally in soaring leaps and bounds that are nearly akin to flying. Yet, he summons no wings. He can't imagine he made a particularly good impression on anyone, the way he was before.

III➔ The Weight of Absence (Aug 5+)

And then, some days later, Relena is taken.

He doesn't know the meaning of it, at first. The guards simply come to remove her from the cell, saying it's for some manner of 'trial', and she goes, with nothing he or Himeka could do to stop it. He demands answers at the time, shouting at the guards, but receives none. Initially, he wonders if she'll be freed, much like Kay was. It'd make sense, he thinks. If the trial was just, he could see no reason for her to be put in solitary or anywhere else, and he knows she has at least one friend on the outside.

Yet, when he doesn't hear anything from her in the coming days, he can no longer rely on that hopeful thought. Kay has been allowed to come and go, just like the other guests. Would Relena not have come to speak to them, after being freed? If not for him, for Himeka or the others?

As each day passes, his frustration and worry increases. He'll start attempting to flag down any passing guests, asking if they have seen her amount the others upstairs. On the way to recreation, he will check to be sure she hasn't simply changed cells, and ask around the other prisoners.

"Relena - the girl from my cell, with the long sandy hair - the guards have taken her somewhere. Have you seen her?"

With fewer and fewer kind possibilities in his mind, he'll start turning his aggression to the guards, shouting at them to ask for her location, and trying to grab at them through the bars when they inevitably ignore him. Finally, he manages to catch sight of a guard he thinks he recognizes from the day she disappeared. He manages to catch them by the arm, dragging them back against the bars of the cell.

"Where is the girl?" he snarls.

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As the guard yanks Estinien's arm up, it forces Himeka to loosen her own grip on it lest she make the situation even worse. But it is not what she had anticipated as an option either. Her eyes widen--he'll have no range of motion being stuck to the cell door, unable to get back to the bed, to the corner, to even sit--

"Stop this!" She grabs hold of the bars, glowering up at the guard, her tail twitching rapidly. "You can't leave him like this! Please, just release him and we won't bother you again."

This guard, at least.

The guard just makes a rude gesture at her, one that may or more not be unique to this world, looking like he's far too angry to even dignify that with a response. He doesn't seem all that convinced by either of them at this point, and turns to storm off to wherever the other guards have been congregating.

For the moment, they are left to themselves.

Estinien sways on his feet, having no easy resting position to fall into. Now that the guard is gone, at least, he can rest his other arm against the crossbar, but he's still left awkwardly standing there. It wouldn't be so bad if he wasn't already so tired from all of this. Again, he's left in a state of punishment with no idea when it will end.

His expression has fallen into one of raw disappointment, staring out through the bars helplessly as his aching wrist digs against the metal of his shackle. Nothing was gained by this attempt, in the end. No information, no advantages, only more suffering. Relena is still missing and he can do nothing about it. Even if he had succeeded at putting the guard at his mercy, would it have achieved anything? Or would it have only made his punishment worse?

"It seems I have again only complicated things for myself," he murmurs to her, feeling like a fool.

That the guard leaves them just like that should be a boon, but she cannot help but feel she probably made the situation worse by butting in. Her tail droops as the seconds tick by and she turns her attention back up to Estinien even before he speaks again.

And when he does, she shakes her head.

"I could tell you it was a poor idea, but we haven't heard a single thing of her whereabouts..."

Someone was going to snap eventually. It's been days and some mornings Himeka looks over to the other cot and expects to see Relena there as if naught had changed.

"So I won't."

Despite it all, she does offer Estinien somber, but small smile.

"But I will stand with you. Literally and figuratively."

He manages to offer his own slight smile in return for that, though it's hard to maintain. She's right, they haven't heard anything, and it's been enough to push him further and further towards rashness. How could he live with himself if he left this girl for dead? If he didn't even try?

And yet, now he's done everything his could, with no results to be seen. He's not sure which feeling is worse - not trying hard enough, or trying his hardest, with equally little success.

"I'm beginning to fear the worst has taken place," he says to her softly. His arm sways, suspended in its shackle. "The Duchess herself said the High Mage would easily murder us, if it would bring him any closer to his goals. We are... nothing to him."

He closes his eyes, flinching as he feels his gut wrench with emotion.

"But why... why of all sacrifices, did it have to be her?"

Her gaze falls as he speaks, but she can only nod in response. She, too, has been fearing the worst. And the more time passes, the less hope she feels there is for their dear friend and charge.

Truthfully there is the possibility that she has been released for her good behavior or with someone else to vouch for her, but the fact that they cannot even get a confirmation of that is suspicious. Relena had been able to do as much with Kay. Surely, it isn't out of the question?

"She doesn't seem like a likely target, no," Himeka admits as she looks back up to catch her friend's gaze. "..."

There's a pause before she says with an authority she does not usually muster,

"Which is why we have to act as if she has not been made an example. The sentence of Jon Sims was made public, wasn't it? If she were the same surely that would be the same. I believe Relena still lives."

He can think of arguments for why she might be wrong. That whatever happened to Relena, it was not meant to be an example, but part of some other scheme. That they were keeping it quiet because they knew full well the discord it would see.

Yet, with Himeka speaking in such a confident tone, he can't find it in himself to fight her on it. She's still holding onto hope, so perhaps he can for a while longer, too. Hasn't he been wrong that way before?

"If she is still here... there must needs be a way to discover her true location. I've heard... mutterings, of something strange on the horizon." His voice becomes even softer, these words intended for Himeka only. "Another player that may be entering the game. If rumors are to be believed."

If something were to happen that gave them an out, her current situation could result in her missing it. You can't rescue someone you can't find.

"It is Jon Sims himself that has claimed to have heard a voice on the edge of the Singularity. A voice that said it would be sending a messenger."

Her eyes narrow as he lowers voice, casting an unsure gaze across the corridor. She pushes up further on her toes to try and get closer. Normally it's the sort of thing they could discuss in the back corners of the cell by their cot, but here they have to be careful.

"A messenger?" she repeats, not quite sure what this implies for their lot, let alone Relena's. "What sort of messenger? And to whom?"

"The details are scant," he says, shaking his head. "Tis why I hesitated on saying anything at all - at least... while here."

He would have preferred to do it when they were both in the Horizon, but his current situation will make that impossible for a while. Yet, it seems prudent to make it clear what his concerns are, lest something happen unexpectedly.

"According to the one who told me, Master Sims seemed uneasy with the experience. But I find myself growing less and less picky."

She frowns, not exactly sure what this is supposed to be implying. A messenger implies a message and an intended recipient. Is the message for...them? For prisoners? For all who have been pulled here from their worlds? For Thorne?

"Is this...something we're supposed to fear?" A harbinger of doom? "Or welcome?"

He wishes he had more details as well, but unfortunately, he is grasping at straws. All Estinien can do is wearily shake his head.

"I know not," he says softly. "But it's something. It's better than nothing at all."

He would even take a harbinger of doom over more of this.

Himeka bows her head. If Estinien holds some hope in this, then she should too--that's what her heart tells her. It is easier to simply believe in the wants of her friends when she isn't sure what she thinks, anyway.

"I wonder if there is aught to be discovered about this in Horizon," she says, though more offhand. She wouldn't have a clue where to start searching. Maybe in Jon Sim's strange circular building?

Though, speaking on Horizon...

Himeka slowly raises her head to look up at her friend.

"I liked your wings, by the way."

That catches him completely off guard, of course. Leave it to Himeka to keep something like that in her pocket for weeks before suddenly dragging it up again. It's far from an offensive comment, of course, but he can't help how many conflicted and worried feelings it summons up.

He blinks at her and then, after a moment of confused silence, looks away.

"They were not exactly my own, were they?" he finally says, furrowing his brow. "Twas strange how... natural it felt at the time. As much a part of my instincts as my human face, or hands."

It has been on her mind, as much of Horizon has, but in light of Relena's disappearance, it hardly seemed important. Though as soon as her mind wanders back towards Horizon, it once again comes at the forefront.

They haven't really spoken much of what happened and mayhaps he would prefer not to all together, but now...well, she'd like to help take his mind off their current predicament, at least.

"Not here no, but there they were." That they were a resemblance to Nidhogg is very apparent after the fact, yet at the time she had just found them intriguing. "As an esteemed expert on scales, I will say you wore them nicely."

See? It's a compliment.

The strange thing about it is that he seemed to be in a small minority that manifested such alterations. Most of the people in there, even if they changed clothing, seemed to look mostly like themselves. Only a handful saw fit to change their bodies to such a degree... and come to think of it, he was speaking to one of the others who had.

"Tis for that reason I was surprised to see you imitating a Hyur," he says, glancing in her direction with a trace of uncertainty. "I wouldn't have thought that would be among your interests."

At first, he had almost been uncertain that it was her, but based on the things she showed him there was no other explanation. He hasn't brought it up mostly because he hadn't wanted to invite interrogation to his own change of aesthetic.

Even if it frightens him, he understands why, on a subconscious level, he felt that was right. With her, he has no idea, and can't even form any reasonable theories.

Edited (tis) 2021-08-27 06:26 (UTC)

For as ready as she was to comment on his change in...wardrobe, she really had not prepared any remarks in the event that it was turned around in kind. In no small part because she has been avoiding thinking about that in particular, instead having to make excuses to those who did not know her as well. Writing it off as Horizon business is easy enough in that regard.

But...the implications here are a little different. Though she is keen to draw comparisons to the scales he acquired to her own heritage, she knows well that it was his connection to Nidhogg that caused him to appear as such. It wasn't a conscious decision, no more than her own.

"Mmmmmm," she hums to buy a little time.

"I have been...curious! As to what ears feel like. That was probably it." She snaps her fingers like she had an epiphany, her tail starting to twitch anxiously behind her. "They are very strange, for the record. I can say with confidence that horns are much better."

Realistically they are not.

Estinien isn't precisely a master of reading people, but he isn't hopeless at it, either. Himeka's reaction is weird - he would have expected more earnest curiosity about why it happened if she really had no substantial ideas. Beyond a curiosity about a topic so banal it's hard to imagine it would survive the trip to the Horizon.

He gives her a look that suggests he isn't convinced by that, but that he's hesitating over whether to confront her on it. There aren't many people he would just allow to lie to him if they truly preferred, but she is definitely one of them. All the same, the only reasons he can imagine for her to do that are grim.

"You haven't been made to feel... insecure about your heritage, have you?" Maybe being in a place that's mostly Hyur has harmed her somehow? Had someone said something to her?

As far as he knows, she's very proud of being an Au Ra. Had he misread her so badly, all this time?

The look she gives in turn is one she tries to hold to appear the most believable as possible. Truthfully, she is a terrible liar, having not seen any reason to be anything but honest most of her life. Typically she doesn't have much need to now anyway and what she decides she doesn't want to share with others--she simply doesn't.

And here, well...it's a matter she is still working out for herself. But given the arrival of a rather pivotal figure in the whole mess, Himeka isn't sure she reasonably can.

At least not if it would affect Estinien as well. That, she couldn't do to him.

Her silence probably says enough in and of itself, but she does eventually shake her head.

"Not...exactly, no."

How can she begin this...

"You said that your wings and scales felt natural, right?" Himeka cants her head to the side. "Mayhaps...like they had just always been a part of you?"

Estinien seems prepared to waffle over that assertion, now that attention is being drawn to it. Ultimately, though, he can only shrug a shoulder.

"To the part of Nidhogg that remains within me... I suppose they truly had."

He's always enjoyed being airborne, but it felt so natural in the Horizon, as if he couldn't imagine a life where he couldn't. He wanted to fly with the brood he could no longer remember, but felt the absence of regardless. It was almost disturbing how seamlessly those desires melded with those of his true life.

She nods, knowing now that the connection he felt with Nidhogg was much deeper than she had imagined a few months prior. In their time in the mines where hallucinations had him calling out in desperation for an onze of the power the wyrm had granted him, now to Horizon where he looked more then part than he had even with both eyes embedded into his frame. He hadn't questioned it there.

Neither had she.

In Horizon, nothing of her own existence had felt off. In many ways she felt that this is simply what she should be doing--seeking out new realms, meeting the locals and trying to understand them. There was a desire to collect that experience as there ever was, but also that knowledge, as if it were something precious and worth protecting.

"Do you think it's something that you may have become had you not met Nidhogg yourself?" That's not the best way to phrase it. She's just not good at this. "What I mean is--do you think there is a part of you that would always call to that same...feeling? Existence to manifest in such a way?"

To Estinien, her question is very confusing. Even as he falls silent to contemplate it, he can't quite work out what she's asking. Become that in what sense? Mentally? Physically? How could he ever have developed the urge to do things as a dragon without having met one?

His lack of understanding shows on his face. He shakes his head a little, visibly at a loss.

"I've said before I believed Nidhogg and I to be of the same cloth, with our thirsts for revenge... but I know not how those other traits could have come about, without his influence...?"

He seems bothered by the question, somehow.

Himeka nods, feeling a little emboldened by this confusion. While she keeps one hand around one of the bars, she starts to motion animatedly with the other.

"Yes, and that's exactly what I've been wondering!" So he does understand, even if he doesn't realize it. "I don't know if what I became there is what I would have become if I had not known or if this is simply something my head is trying to work around like some sort of weird dream. Or is this who I've always been but would have never realized it if not for the opportunity to face myself?"

Okay, she is decidedly missing several details in there.

"But then Ardbert never looked like that either. What does that mean...? And...furthermore, how come I didn't grow a beard or something when we...?"

Estinien would be tempted to just turn around and walk away at this point from sheer consternation were he not chained to the bars, and also locked in a cell. As it is, all he can do is stare at her helplessly. He feels like she's trying to share something with him here, but he really doesn't understand it at all.

"The part of yourself... that is a male Hyur?"

She definitely seemed female in the Horizon unless there was something he missed.

A captive audience to her crisis is not what she intended, but here they are. A part of her thought about sharing these experiences with Y'shtola or Urianger as they seemed the most likely to have an inkling to the truth of the matter, but telling them would also mean letting it out to all of the Scions, and she isn't ready for that yet. Not with the implications therein.

Himeka nods quickly.

"Yes, he was a Midlander with brown hair and a scruffy chin. A little short." It does settle, then, that it probably seems a little weird she would say that at all, so she finally blesses Estinien with something of an explanation. "On the First--I met my counterpart there. His name was Ardbert...and he was a Warrior of Light before the Flood came."

That, she knows, Estinien has been debriefed on in greater detail than she will be able to weave adequate words for.

"It's strange, isn't it? To think that on the other shards that are left, there is another piece of you still out there. Living their own lives...completely unaware."

She is a little distant for a moment, eyes unfocused. It is as much as they had been to the other worlds if not for a year ago and some ingenuity and determination of old friends. The timeline has been corrected, of course, but their sacrifices are still ones they cannot forget.

"And yet," she says as she finally comes back, refocusing her gaze on Estinien. "Though he's part of me now, I don't look like I've changed, have it? But...what if...what if all parts of us were brought back together? Then what would we become? Would we become our 'true' selves? Who we were before?"

Himeka shakes her head, looking down once again. "You know I'm no scholar nor one for these sorts of existential quandaries, yet I've been plagued by them ever since we left the First...and I'm just a dope who is hardly equipped to tackle them."

Estinien, truthfully, has avoided putting too much thought into any of this, ever since he was informed of the concept of shards. He gathered that, as part of the overall cosmology, that what had been before was split into parts, which was the source of the Ascian's frustration. To him, though, it seems in poor taste to give the Ascian's more credit than they were due in that regard.

Thinking about himself as lesser, as only a fragment of a whole, would be indulging their avarice. Then again, it's been easy for him to do that, when he never had to see or experience the reality of it. Himeka was not so fortunate... and seemingly, there's more to it than had even been penned in the Scion reports he'd flipped through.

He doesn't like thinking about the idea of other versions of himself. What would it even look like, if they could vary as wildly as the difference between a female Au Ra and a male Hyur? There's no visual he can muster, and no context either. His life, his identity, has been so powerfully shaped by events outside of his control, he has no idea who he'd be without them.

Himeka and this Ardbert are both Warriors of Light, apparently. The reflection of her character is included in that. What is he outside of his quest for vengeance, though? What is he without Nidhogg's horde and Azure Dragoons? He has no answers, and the discomfort weighs heavily on him. He can imagine she feels much the same - he also feels very much out of his league.

"Isn't considering that being as your 'true' self what the Ascians would demand of us? At the cost of our peace and our lives?" He glances away from her. "You are what you are, Himeka. If this Ardbert has become a part of you... then that is all you need consider."

After all, Estinien is familiar with the concept of another person becoming inextricably a part of you.

"To think of yourself as less than complete only indulges the whims of tyrants."

Before their travel to the First, before her losing battle to "Zenos", she had begun to question. Bits and pieces and seeing all the wonderful change wrought, seeing all the lives lost in the process, she began to wonder who she was outside of this. She had left her identity back in the Ruby Sea and adopted the life of an adventurer...though that had not been her plan. Had Y'shtola not spotted her, who would she be? What would she be worth?

Could she make this sort of difference? Or was it only that she followed the best of thoughts with more forethought and greater ambitions that her name be known to any?

That she should learn while looking for fulfillment that she has not been whole this entire time--it never bothered her before. In many ways, the people she met made her feel whole and worthwhile. And that should be enough, shouldn't it? That was how she felt until her soul began to literally tear at the seams, knowing that it could have ended all so very differently had her friends not left her to accept that fate and had Ardbert not elected to throw his individually to the wind to join with hers.

Himeka is quiet again, mulling on his words. It's not the sort of companionable silence they normally share--it's heavy and it shows on her brow and the way her tail droops behind her, barely twitching at the end.

"...To be honest, I had been wondering for a while if I really understood who I was outside of this mantle of 'Warrior of Light'," she says quietly.

"But what would you think of me if...part of me was one of them?"

[OPEN] cold wind blowing beneath my wings

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