22 → I saw my path lie in levels of deep shadow

[crimson_seeker]

[The following appears in the morning, barely past dawn. Someone is drawing on this page, in careful dashes and swirls of ink: an image of a curled-up dragon emerges. The margin is spotted with ink by the time he's done.]

Comments

[coughcoughshank]

[There's a few drips of ink as Souji is... not quite sure how to respond to this]

Is everything alright?

[crimson_seeker]

It will be.

[coughcoughshank]

Alright.

[He won't impinge your dignity, and if you need him - well, you know where to find him, Hawk]

[crimson_seeker]

Thank you.

[feathered_earth]

Hawk? Did something happen?

[crimson_seeker]

Yes. I'll be fine.

[feathered_earth]

[She knows what that means.]

Do you want some company?

[crimson_seeker]

[A pause.]

Yes. Though I might add to your worries, but you knew that.

[spandexisyouth]

Hawk? Do you need or want company?

[He's not sure what's going on, but that sounds melancholy.]

[crimson_seeker]

The thought is appreciated.

[spandexisyouth]

I do not know what that means.

[crimson_seeker]

It means I thank you for the offer. I knew this was coming; I'll be all right.

[sting_to_death]

What does this mean?

[crimson_seeker]

I means what it says. Nothing you need concern yourself with.

[sting_to_death]

It doesn't say much.

[crimson_seeker]

It says all it needs to. It's a reminder, somewhere that will be harder to lose entirely.

[offline]

[getsome_sleep]

[It's only a little while later that Huo comes out to the porch, newly woken, hair still loose, but alert and aware. Rising early, looking through the journal is the first thing he does every morning, and the moment he sees, he understands.

He had watched for weeks now, silent weeks, and seen the smallest of signs, and suspected, feared. But he had not spoken, on the off-chance, the treasured hope that he was wrong. He could be wrong. And to frighten Hawk needlessly would have been far beyond the scope of cruelty.

He had never in his life so dearly wished to be wrong.

And now, all he can do is kneel down next to Hawk; to cautiously, gently reach out to place a hand on his back, just enough contact to reassure of contact. He cannot comprehend what Hawk has lost; but he is there to silently offer all that can be offered, what closeness and comfort that one simple human can give another.]

[offline]

[crimson_seeker]

[The consolation is that he knew. He's had a month to slowly learn the truth. The touch of the white dragon has ebbed away and left him as he was, one day, in a time beyond memory: a mortal man somewhere between twenty and thirty winters of age.

He straightens from his hunched posture, sitting on the topmost step, leaning slightly into the touch and into Huo's presence. There are cautious words of comfort and offers of company scrawled across the journal page; he can't quite accept any of them yet. But he can't turn away from Huo any more than from this truth. The dragon's sign has vanished from his face; he can no longer pull the gem into his hand. His dreams are his own.]

It's... done now, then. Truly done. And the strangest thing still is that I live.

[offline]

[getsome_sleep]

Is it truly so strange?

[Huo's voice is quiet. His hand slowly rubs up and down Hawk's back. In the flesh, his brother feels the same - it is a the same human body that once bore heavenly fire within it. Now all that it bears is Hawk. But Hawk is still there. Did you foresee this somehow, without knowing it? he fleetingly wonders. When I spoke words of brotherhood to the man, not the heavenly being. Did a part of you know that one day, they will hold as they were spoken?

The task may be done. Hawk is not.]

A human life was taken from you - now, it is given back. Heaven knows, that is only right.

[offline]

[crimson_seeker]

[Hawk's head dips, and he's still and silent for a moment before answering. Huo's touch is a comfort and a reminder, as always; he lets it be. How to explain? He doesn't remember his death, other than the feeling of rightness and liberation that laced his first birth dream. That memory is a year old now, growing more distant by the day.]

I... yeah. It is. Not sure I can put it into words.

[Thank the faraway gods, he thinks, for Huo's patience right now. He has been letting go, piece by painful piece, for all of that year he's been in Edensphere, first unwitting, then knowing, better and better, what he's doing. It is a long way to walk, it seems.]

And I'm not certain that it's a bad sort of strange. Just... new. I suppose I'll find out. Where to go now.