Matters only grew worse after the shooting incident, and though no more sign of Percy was seen, Lohengrin almost wouldnāt have put it past a few of the others to go bounding off into the woods as well. Maybe the machineāthere was no mistaking that it was malfunctioning spectacularly. Maybe Vivian, since she was fucking crazy anyway. He was getting a bit of a kick out of the way Dioās hair was standing on end, thoughāthat and the way the bitch seemed to be leaving a trail of delicate-smelling flowers behind her. If there was anything conducive to ruining the front she tried to put up, it was probably that. Next thing he knew, she would be followed around by small and furry animals. There was no mistaking it thoughāthings were only growing more irritating the further they went in, and the mages were getting the worst of it.
It was almost sunset when he caught the first whispers. A low, droning hum that he could not quite discern played over the back of his mind more like a memory than a sound, and he found himself unable to cease his thoughts about things heād rather not dwell upon. Those morons heād used to run with. His parents, met at last after long years of searchingāa meeting which had not gone exactly the way he was planning. The drone eventually took on a more musical pitch, like a chorus of voices humming in a stunningly-complex harmony, notes dropping into the silence like the last fragments of rain dripped from the subtle curve of a leaf. Unable to stop it, he countered the sound with a low hiss, signifying more than anything his agitation.
He directed his question to Dio, since the captain was too far ahead, Sven too far behind, and everyone else probably too angry to answer rationally, if he had his guess. āYou hear that?ā It wasnāt just buffeting his thoughts around against his will, it was making his magic itch, and the sense that his skin was far too small to contain all of him intensified until he was almost certain he must be splitting at the seams. Indeed, under his clothing, he was starting to look a bit reptilian, and though he didnāt feel it as such, there was a faint suggestion of glittering red scales around the outsides of his eyes and over his forehead and cheekbones. Nothing definitive, but certainly noticeable.
Dio had begun twitching rather severely a while back, and upon being asked a question by Lohengrin, she struggled mightily to stop her right eye from constantly spasming, or her arms from jolting this way and that. She had only moderate success. In addition, she was fairly certain this was elevating her heart rate to a level that wasn't exactly healthy. Her breathing was quickening, and she'd begun to sweat a good deal, even though it wasn't particularly hot at all.
āWhat?" she asked, initially quite surprised that the man would speak to her at all, considering how heād avoided her on the ship. And she knew heād been avoiding her, as sheād made a conscious effort to speak to everyone. She had assumed he was simply not a people person, and let it be. She twitched slightly, accidentally shocking a thick bush on her right, causing her to jump. āOw! Uh. Yeah. I guess so. Sorry. Donāt get too close to me. I donāt want to shock you.ā Halting her rambling, she twitched away from Lohengrin, trying to keep her arms to herself to prevent any more shocks. She ended up wrapping them around herself in a tight hug. It stopped her from zapping every plant within three feet of her all the time, but made the twitching worse.
Why this place was reminding her of home was beyond her. Xantus looked nothing like this. She had the sudden and troubling thought that it was simply because she didnāt belong here. She didnāt belong at home, either. She had no home. Her own would kill her if she ever showed her face. Shaking her head, several little lightning bolts cracked between the ends of strands of her hair. Dio tried to push the thoughts aside, but they were persistent.
Things were not going quite as planned. He hadn't expected to run into this type of trouble. Theon's dream-vision had only told them of one potential enemy. A green-warrior creature. Perhaps, this was his doing. He still hadn't seen anyone himself, and he trusted Theon's judgment enough to know that he'd mention something if he'd seen someone stalking them. Far too proud a person not to. How could they combat something they couldn't smell, touch, or see? Explaining it was difficult enough. Without a sound plan, they'd end up unintentionally tearing each others heads off. Even now, after he'd calmed down and retreated away from that verrĆ¼ckt fraulein, he could feel his blood boiling; keening to spill over. Normally, it was he who remained calm, unaffected by anyone's behavior. It felt strange to behave in such a wayāchildish, even. The Lieutenant clenched his hands into tight, white-knuckled fists, scanning the trees and bushes for any signs of Percy. No such luck; no cloven hooves, no white tail flagging them down. Hopefully, he'd regain his senses and calm down. Either that, or take his human form and cut back through the trees.
They couldn't continue without him or stay put.
He glanced over his shoulder, noting Kethyrian's train of flowers, sprouting stubbornly at her feet. Her sneezes would have raised one of his heavy eyebrows, or split the frown from his lips, if it weren't for the bristling adrenaline still coursing thickly through his veins, threatening to overcome his sensibilities. He hadn't even noticed that he'd trampled several patches of them. The Lieutenant hadn't noticed much, it seemed. Dio's hair was snapping on end, as if invisible currents ran through what was not stuffed beneath her cap. He bleakly wondered if Gwen's mechanized limbs were acting up as well. The uncomfortable pulses in his arms and legs seemed to grow more frequent, issuing tremors down his fingers. If he hadn't known better, then he would've said that they felt real. Like ghostly appendages, prickling back to life; no longer just stumps and useless gams. Several times, Sven found himself compelled to look at his arm, flexing the synthetic tendons and touching the crook of his elbow with his real hand only to find himself oddly disappointed.
It was also then that he noticed the whispers, briefly brushing against his ears. Hushed tones that seemed as if they didn't quite want to be heard, forcing him to pause and listen. He could have been imagining it for all he knew. The forest was playing tricks on them, stirring up their emotions and preying on their weaknesses. Was he imagining it? There, he heard it again. His gaze swung away from the others and back towards the forest. It was less like a memory, and more like vivid images painted onto a screen, shifting like a phonograph that was impossible to stop. His breath hitched, held. Meeting her for the first time; with that ugly flannel shirt, ripped jeans. Cooing words he couldn't understand. Beautiful sounds that slipped from her lips as soft as poetry, tickling him embarrassed when he tried to repeat them. Gwendolyn's father, as wellāmaking him promise that he'd watch his little girl, because that was all that was important to him. The heavy expectancy. Those eyes, alight and fiery, practically drawing out his blood; a contract of sorts, made entirely out of friendship. He'd been there in his darkest days, after all. And his brother. Whispering feverishly do you see, now do you see, see, see? Taking everything away from him in a burst of light. There was so much blood.
The Lieutenant's meaty hand pressed against his forehead, hiding the right side of his face beneath his palm. He squashed it there, willing the memories to just fucking stop. If he just pressed hard enough, he could push them out. The whispers developed into an unusual din, or a convoluted hymn. Thousands of murmurs caroling all at once, like a horde of musical crickets; some familiar, some alien. The sound he made was strangled. He kept his hand held there, pushing. So that his memories wouldn't flood out? So that he wouldn't hear her voice again? He wasn't sure. It was too close, too local. Too personal. Instead, Sven tore his eyes away from the forest and looked back at his... what? Friends, companionsāwhatever, they kept him grounded. This was what was real. His eyes caught on Lohengrin and Dio, paused. His face was different, glinting this way and that. Catching at the retreating plumes of sunlight. Thin, small things. Red scales. He meant to approach them, but another spasm shot up his legs.
Of what does a machine think? Can its thoughts even be turned to darker places? Perhaps, Modecai reflected, he was more human than heād thoughtāthe magic of this place seemed to work on him no less, and his thoughts were jumbled swirls of language and color, and most of them were of her. Creator, mother, something like a goddess, if indeed such things existed. What else did you call the being that brought you to life from nothing but pieces of metal and wires? Emotional pain was more or less foreign to him on most daysāhe could not be affronted or insulted in the same way that many humans could, but he had known it very acutely the days sheād sent him away. His entire world she had been, for sheād shut him out from the rest of it, and all of a sudden he was inadequate to the only purpose for which heād been created: to serve her.
Strangely, though she was not here, the exact feeling was resurfacing, seemingly without cause, and the pain with it. It must be a small benefit that heād run out of energy and was not longer able to sustain Berserk Modeābut the wear was telling. His perfectly-fitted joints seemed suddenly to slide together in unfamiliar ways, producing faint creaking noises that hurt his meager pride more than his function. Mordecai had always known himself to be well-crafted, and maintained himself to the exacting specifications heād been built. That something as odd as a place could undo that effort was disconcerting in its own right. His brows knitted together over the straight line of his nose, but he dare not say anything; he could still not seem to speak in a way the others would understand.
Kethyrian wanted to scream. What had started as a mere annoyance was getting worseāthe environment was now doing more than just skimming the top of her magic to keep the plants growing at her feet. It was outright draining her, making her sway with uncomfortable fatigue, and the damned humming was doing nothing to help her. She couldnāt breathe, almost, for the heavy atmosphere pressing in over her nose and mouth. This place was nothing like the caverns that were once her home, but she was somehow reminded of them all the same. Mind-magic, but of a kind she was helpless to resist, given the constant sap effect she was under. If it didn't stop soon, she was going to collapse, and she might even dieānot, of course, that she planned on telling anyone this.
And the lizard was turning red again, the memory mocking her as surely as the rest. As surely as the sneering faces of her so-called kin. As surely as her every failure ever had. Pride was a thin shield, indeed, and she could feel it wearing at the edges. Glass, slicing into her fingers. She was cutting glass and thorns. The captain had the right of itātoo much the right, calling her Thistle. Prickly, but so easily crushed underfoot, as Sven was crushing her endless train of flowers. She would too, if she could.
Fuck everything.
Teeth ground against one another as Vivi marched foward. Her pistol had been traded in for her saber, now resting in her hand. The blade would be faster than reloading the barrels, though the worrying thought was what would it be faster for? It sat in a reverse grip as the tip of the blade dragged along the ground behind her, marking the trail that she followed. Even Vivi didn't know what she was going to use it for, she couldn't cut the voices out of her head after all. Hopefully she wasn't too far gone to use it on her companions either. It just felt nice to have something heavy and dangerous in her hand. It made her feel in control, even if that control was just an illusion.
She found the eye of her mind turned toward things she'd rather keep buried. Shadows and silhouttes danced in the corners of her visions, vanishing as soon as she turned her head. Her face, a stranger to any emotion other than a blissful ignorant smile, did not wear the hardened scowl well. She was being forced back into her memories, whispers of her past threatening to engulf and drown her. Normally, she'd be too hard-headed, too willful, or just too damn energetic to allow such thoughts creep back into her imagination. But with her mood and attitude already dreadfully sour, the colorful shield erected around her was torn down, allowing all the ghosts and specters free reign.
One such spector walked beside her. She walked, her head listing to the side as she stared into the vast expanses of nothing that retreated into the forests. But where there was nothing for everyone else, Vivi saw something. She watched the specter, taking every step she did, striding beside her. It was like looking into a foggy mirror. An indistinct reflection stared back at her-- no. It didn't stare back. It stared past her, like she wasn't there. Like whatever was behind her was far more interesting that the girl that stood in front of it. That's what pissed her the most. Being overlooked.
Anger was an odd property for Vivi, and one she didn't feel often. Where some would lose themselves in their anger, personified by fire and heat, Vivi's was a cold and calculating thing. She was wild when she was happy, but she was efficent when she was mad. Her eyes narrowed at the uninterested specter and she spat. There was a metaphor about her personal demons here, but she was so over it it didn't matter. Yeah, she had a problem with being ignored and being overlooked, she knew this. She didn't need a damn ghost telling her that. She tore her head away from the specter. Instead, her eyes buried into the back of Theon, unflinching and unmoving. Vivi walked with her eyes glued to him.
He was real, he was here, and they had a problem.
And yet, for all they thought and all they felt, there still seemed to be nothing there. The music was nothing more than a dull thrum, regardless of how discordant the echoes seemed in her mind. Gwen knew she probably had far from the worst of it. She could think only of her father, and those memories were so steeped in love and happiness that even the dull ache at the center of her chest could not bring her down. Heād been her hero and her protector, and sheād never outgrown things like heroes and protectors. Her smile was bittersweet, but it was a smile all the same. She could recall most clearly the nights she spent as a child on his knee, watching as he flipped through thick engineering tomes, pointing at the diagrams and asking a thousand questions. Heād never tired of them, and sheād learned to read when she ran out of queries about diagrams. My little scientist, heād said, will build ships faster and lovelier and more efficient than these.
Heād had nothing but pride and affection for her, and sheād drunk that in like a desert pilgrim come upon an oasis. The world was a hard, cruel placeāsheād always known this in the abstract. Heād not spared her the stories, but heād spared her the reality, making their home warm and open and inviting. Even when his friends from the army days had come by, even when heād set his skills back to work making machines for Artorias, breaking his vow against inventing weapons, even then, there had been nothing in her world but love. It was perhaps hardly a wonder that it was still all she saw.
She wanted to be just like him. To lead people through the troubled times and the trials of mind and body, to create a shield against all the bad things to be found out there, but she could not. This, more than anything, was what troubled Gwendolyn. She had ideasāideas about what a captain should be, about who she should be, what she should be able to do, and these ideas were modeled on who her father was. But she couldnāt live up to them, no matter how she tried. She was still just a child, playing at being an adult, or so it felt to her. To most people, twenty-seven was hardly a childlike age, but Gwen had never lost her innocent fascination with the world, nor the naĆÆve desire that it should all be as it had been in her youth; a permanent springtime of life, for whom the only trials were the occasional spell of autumn. Winter did not exist in her heart, not ever.
But she was helpless to chase it away from anyone else, just like one ray of sunlight wasnāt enough to cut through the chill of this place.
She couldnāt warm them or soothe them, but she could sure as hell make sure they didnāt run themselves into the ground. āAll right,ā she said, firmly enough to hopefully stave off the worst of the arguments, but gently enough that she hopefully wouldnāt snap any of the tense threads here. āWe have to camp sometime, and Iād rather set it while we still have a bit of light. That clearing there should do.ā They still had another dayās walking, by the initial calculation, but who knew how much worse all this could get tomorrow? It was at least best not to add fatigue to the list of their problems.