who told you what was down here

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

He may as well have slapped her in the face. The result was the same; color drained from her face with the exception of a bright flush of red burning on other cheek. Speechless for long moments, her mind splintered like breaking glass at the insult, the reality check cracking like a pile of bricks against her head, the implication that she should just shut up and stay in her place like another good dog.

And to her utter rage and frustration, tears were prickling in her eyes, like so often when she got angry. She hated it - hated the way it came off, like she was vying for sympathy when in reality all she wanted was to kick their teeth in.

"Well," she breathed, voice quivering with too much emotion, "they probably chose the wrong profession then. And if that's what you think my reason for speaking up is - to martyr myself - then there's really no point in continuing this conversation." As if she'd done any of this for her. She didn't need a fucking audience to end her life if that was what her goal had been - there were plenty of cliffs in Caido, and a whole region full of dragons that could get that done if a dagger felt too mediocre. Oh, would that she could be that selfish. That would make everything so much easier. Instead she had to stare her own inadequacy in the face and try to come to terms with the fact that she could do shit all to protect anything.

As if she didn't know her own insignificance. As if she wasn't trying her damnedest to fight in spite of it.

Shaking her head, she turned her back on Asta and began to head back the way they had come. She didn't say anything against his trust and his obedience because there was no point. She was not a dog, and she would not follow anyone blindly. Wouldn't trust anyone to safeguard her life, because when had that ever worked well in the past? And she didn't know these people, didn't know how to let them in, and fuck if she wasn't tired of hearing how wrong she was to think the way she was.

Fuck her, right? So she'd fuck right off and spare them the trouble.

Maea

// with our one foot in the grave //

He thinks for a moment that he’s getting somewhere with her when she grows speechless, only to find that she’s latched onto one thing in particular that she cannot get past. And while he scouts out the tunnels, wondering if it’s even worth it anymore, her voice reaches him however quivering it may be. But Astaroth isn’t in the position right now to offer sympathies. Only truths and facts of what he knows and has experienced. “Maea, darling, you must look at it objectively. Take your feelings out of it.” He half turns to her as she starts to walk away, his voice rising to follow after her to see if she may return to the conversation when she’s done being a child.

“You are not a leader. You are not one of those strong warriors fighting amongst the sands in Torchline weeks ago. Does a fly actively seek out a battle with a spider? No. Because it understands the threat.” To be caught up early is to die. “What I am saying is that just because you do not see progress or work between the regions for the threat, does not mean that it is not happening.” And he pauses, because he knows he’s dancing a treacherous line, but one he feels important. “You harbor trust issues and a belief that only you can save all of us. It will get you killed.” He turns more fully now, whether or not she’s vanished back into the tunnel before he continues to speak after her.

“Do you understand that Dantalion harbors deep seated trust issues as well, but he can play the part, because he spent decades doing just that for survival. He knows when to trust those around him and when to keep things close to his chest.” Regardless if she believed him or not, Astaroth knew. He’d seen it time and time again. He cannot say much for the other leaders, having not known them the way he knows the Maverick, but he offers what he can.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

She had never been able to separate her own emotions from matters at hand. It just wasn't how she worked. If there was nothing that sparked a connection in the things that went on around her, she simply ignored it. If it wasn't personal, it may as well not exist. Which made everything she did see intimately personal, and tied to her own self in so many ways. For good, and for bad.

Asta's voice echoed after her, and for a long stretch of tunnel she was able to ignore it. She heard him, but the words felt only as rocks pummeling her back, driving her further away. Until he accused her of having a savior complex; that made her stop.

"I don't think I can save everyone!" she all but screamed back, so frustrated and angry that all control fled out the figurative window. Her voice cracked - she was beyond noticing. "I don't fucking care about everyone, I care about you! And Danta, and the small, pathetic little handful of people that doesn't leave me the fuck alone. You think I don't know how unlikely it is that any one of us is going to make it out of this? I KNOW I can't do a gods damned thing, but if I stand by doing fuck all, then survive while you don't? Fuck you, I'm not doing that. Not again. Not ever again!"

Breathing heavily, her hands were trembling again. Too intense, too overcome by too much emotion, Maea knew the tears were streaming uncontrollably down her face. She couldn't care less. It didn't matter - nothing mattered - because it was so utterly pointless that she wondered why she was even trying.

"I don't care if I'm a fly or a fucking speck of dust, I don't care if I die, I DONT CARE if the only thing I ever achieve is to make those fuckers blink. At least I did that. At least I don't have to swallow shit and eat shit and live a shitty life that's not mine. Go away if you don't like the way I do things. Go away anyway - Leave me the fuck alone so I don't have to FUCKING CARE!"

It sounded unhinged even to her own ears. Erratic, illogical. She was contradicting herself - as always. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to have company. Wanted friends, and family, but couldn't stand to have anyone around for long. She wanted to matter and resented anyone who suggested otherwise, she wanted to be forgotten and ignored and hated it when someone proved able to both understand her and spoke words that resonated with her.

She wanted to stay, wanted to go, wanted to stay, to go - she didn't know. Didn't fucking know what to do anymore.

Chose option:
()Run
()Fight
(o)Teleport

Error. Error.

The script was corrupted. No system remained that could tell her what to do. It had all gone up in flames, and she was stuck in a reality that she wanted nothing more than to flee from.

Maea

// with our one foot in the grave //

He doesn’t chase her, instead he lets his words either land or fall on deaf ears, and the only semblance he has of the fact she’s still there is when he strikes a nerve. One that isn’t met on his side to the same degree. Calm, cool, and collected, alone in the cavern of jewels and magma, he finds a particularly pink topaz that he plucks and adds to the collection of stones in his pocket, before figuring out just how to respond to the other woman, hearing the clear devolving that occurs.

“You have helped. In the positions your leader has asked of you in order to do just so, have you not?” It was where they first met, after all. When she had arrived as a pale gore crow to spread the stones to keep the void out and Danta had to ensure the butcher didn’t try to crawl out of his own skin.

She continued and clearly has devolved now, and without much point of Astaroth continue this trek that she had invited him on, he starts to make his way back up the tunnel, chasing after her voice. In the dark of it, illuminated by the orange and red hues of the magma veins, Astaroth clears his throat as he seeks her out as a spidery, dark shadow. “The irony in that, darling, is that is exactly what you and this new society have asked me to do. I cannot fully be who I am.” A pause as his voice echoes off the cavern and he seeks her out. “I have made my sacrifices to appease others' comforts. Perchance you should consider it. Time, and place, have as much to do with the battle as the battle itself.” He clearly knows he isn’t strong enough to say haha I’m going to do whatever I want. So it isn’t a battle he picks.

He does it silently. Quietly. A monster in the middle of the night on occasions that cannot be tracked, and during the day a gentleman with nobody except the Maverick, and Charlie perhaps, none the wiser.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

She stood rooted to the ground when he reached her. Cradling herself, heaving breaths that were not quite sobs showing just how close she was to a full breakdown. If she hadn't already crossed that point; her eyes stared wide and empty into some scene of horror no one else could perceive, and Asta's voice reached her only as trickling water made it past infinitesimal cracks in solid stone. One drop at a time. Slowly, persistently.

He added guilt to the stew of already boiling emotion, and stirred. Made her feel childish, and stupid on top of all the rest. Far from placating her, it only made Maea resent what he was saying even more. Like a stifling wet blanket wrapped too tight around the throat, around her mouth and nose so that she couldn't breathe.

"That's your choice," she grated out, ragged and hoarse; it wasn't that far from a snarl. "No one forced you to give up eating people - you're still doing it, aren't you? I'm sure you are. This is different. You're telling me to accept a boot to my head and give up the control of my life and my spaces to some bitch just because she happens to be powerful. You're telling me I should accept seeing my homeland overrun and my friends stepped on because it's not the right time. Fuck. That."

Her internal scream at the hateful humiliation in accepting such a life, such a state of being, bloomed into a shudder that wrecked her thin frame. Too small a vessel for such vast emotions, it had her head spinning. Before she started swaying where she stood, Maea stumbled to a wall and leaned back against it, hands coming up to drag through the hair, making a mess of the tear-stained cheeks. They were subsiding, thankfully, though a lack of blinking made them sting and water so much it hardly made a difference.

Maea

// with our one foot in the grave //

He finds her, though it isn’t as though it’s difficult to when she pauses in the tunnel and is very clearly falling apart. Unfortunately for her, Astaroth isn’t the coddling type at the best of times, and so to her stubborn rebuttal, Astaroth laughs a low and deep chuckle, almost as if he’s growing exasperated by the circles she keeps running into.

So he stops, too, pressing his back against the wall opposite of hers, perfect posture causing his horns to scrape against the volcanic rock. A gesture he continues, idly, to sharpen them slightly. “Where did I say it would be forever? And last I saw, nobody had a boot to their necks once she left.” The panic was there, of course, but the fact as he knew it, was that choosing that time and that place meant there would be no attempt later if it had gone south.

“Once again, I recommend looking at it objectively. We are not strong enough yet. We do not know what works on them yet. Patience. It is not forever, but you cannot go around recklessly looking at it as the end all be all at the first opportunity presented.” Shrugging his shoulder, horns scraping a bit more on the wall in a crackling sort of sound, Astaroth pushes off to start walking back the way they came, curious if she’d follow or not.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

Even a moment was too long. Cowering when someone looked at you was the same as always cowering, because it meant not standing up for yourself when it counted. What was the difference between that and sneering behind someone's back, too cowardly to face them fair and square? If the bully was too powerful one on one, what was needed would be to rally together and take them on together.

In her mind it seemed so simple, and she couldn't accept Asta's reasonable approach more than she had when Danta said it, or Deimos. She wasn't patient. Couldn't settle for picking rocks and building portals when there was more she could be doing and should be doing. But he wasn't hearing her when she said it, none of them were, and she was at a loss for how to explain it so that they could understand why it had been necessary to do what she did.

Asta pushed away from the wall and began to head back down the tunnel. For a moment Maea nearly walked the other way - but the memory of a vow she'd made recently had her looking down at her hand instead, remembering fire and butterflies and the way it had felt to say the words. I'll do what I want. And if I do something I don't want, it's because I choose to. She suddenly wished Charlie was around. Maybe the priestess could explain why it was that despite doing what she wanted, and choosing to do something she did not, she still came out feeling utterly miserable. Somewhere in that logic there was a flaw.

Quietly, Maea breathed a sigh, wiped at her face with a hand and followed after the man. This was her search, not his. He could think what he wanted - she was not going to be driven off just because he didn't understand her.

No matter how lonely it made her feel.

Maea

// with our one foot in the grave //

They reach an impasse, not that Astaroth minds too much. It’s the same argument again and again, and his mind won’t change. He’s a survivor, he always has been. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have survived the days in this very area becoming who he is today. But he had also learned from those mistakes – the ones that had gotten him trapped in the first place.

He had gone from tribalistic cannibal to the gentleman butcher. The Mighty Astaroth, as his playful Climb moniker had been. While had he remained in Whitebrim, he’d have been nothing more than fodder for food or potential of continuing bloodlines. He had learned when to pick his fights and when to take it. And it took a great deal of patience and time to get to a point where he could mostly stand up to the hierarchy without harm.

He has enough scars as is, the ones created by blade were simply hidden amongst the rest.

But he remains in silence for a few long moments, guiding to the next portion, pausing as the mouth becomes viewable once more and it’s another cavern of firelight, and Astaroth steps aside to let her continue to lead the way.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

For a long while she just followed, eyes to the ground as she stewed in the bubbling mess of her own mind. The silence was deafening in the wake of the intense exchange, but for once Maea was not tempted to break it. It would only lead to more arguing, and she didn't know what else to say - it would only become an endless rehashing of points she'd already made. Points that had been shrugged at and dismissed. Apparently she was wrong. And apparently she was the only one who couldn't understand why.

She barely noticed when Asta stepped aside to let her take the lead. The new cavern that opened up around them was a dark blur interspersed with slowly meandering streams of magma that cast a dim, red glow over the walls and ceiling. Looking too long at it made her eyes hurt, and it didn't take long before the silence lulled her into thinking that they were the only things moving in this part of the Climb. Rock, and shadows, rock and more rock.

Then she stepped on something that moved under her foot, and before she realized what was happening something huge and long and scaly had chomped down on her shoulder, dragged her to the ground and was coiling itself around her, squeezing so tightly that she couldn't breathe. She had the briefest glimpse of an unblinking eye and a flickering tongue - but though she struggled to get her arms free, opening her mouth to shout only let the remaining air out of her lungs with a painful wheeze.

Maea

// with our one foot in the grave //

Even if Maea stews, Astaroth’s mind is an open expanse of everything other than the argument. Notably, his subconscious screaming out at him in case he’d forgotten to leave a note claiming where he would be. But instead of dwelling on it, he continues to walk, taking in everything he can around them and counting the gemstones in his pocket one after another after another, again and again, until he knows which gemstone is which based solely off of feel.

He steps aside to let her in, though, to take in the area and his gaze scans it in a sweeping motion as well. It’s harder to see here, with how little veins of magma appear in the rockery, but it’s still something, and when he finds nothing again but more tunnels, he turns back toward Maea to notice that she’s not where she had been before. No, because there was a fucking rock slider coiled around her and the wheeze that echoes as she drops immediately sets Astaroth on alert. “Absolutely fucking not.” Comes his accented growl, the tone dropping some of his typical politeness as he rushes over.

Flipping the cane, Astaroth uses it to pry at the main coil, giving him a moment to reach into his boot and draw the knife from his shoe. Pulling the cane out to hand to her to use for the moment, he utilizes his strength and both hands to pry the head away from where it could continue to coil around the pale Ancient, hopefully enough to sink his blade between its eyes.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

Her ribs groaned under the strain. The snake was surprisingly cool to the touch despite the heat of the tunnel. Somewhere beneath the pain and the shock of being attacked out of nowhere, Maea reeled at the sheer power of the muscled body that tried to crush the life out of her. Just as when she had laid a hand on the neck of a young foal, like when Hotaru took her hand, like the brief hugs and soothing arms around her shoulders this point of connection was so raw, so solid and real that she could have wept from sheer overwhelm. If she'd gotten any air into her lungs. If she'd been able to think a single thought to finish - but she couldn't even focus enough to summon magic.

Then Asta was there. Prying at the serpent with cane and a dagger, wrestling with the beast. The tip of the blade slipped across the scales, carving a bleeding line across the massive head; a violent hiss vibrated through Maea as the rock slider fought back.

But some of the pressure had been taken off her. Enough to let her wiggle an arm loose, and her chakram along with it.
"Wait - don't - " she got out, when she realized that he was trying to kill it. "Let me - " She just needed to get a solid breath into her lungs. A chance to aim - this was the biggest fucking thing she'd seen and in a hysterically funny twist all she could think was how perfect it would be to use this to reinforce her armor. Which, thankfully, was doing a marvelous job of keeping her ribs and spine and organs intact.

Bracing herself, pushing with both hands to create enough space to move her arm, if Asta gave her the chance she was prepared to slash at the snake with her enchanted weapon.

Maea

// with our one foot in the grave //

She gets an arm loose, not that Astaroth realizes that entirely at the moment – it isn’t until her voice reaches him that the Butcher’s dark gaze moves from the space he’d been working with. The dark line carved into the creature’s head beads up to the surface and with the scent of iron in the air, Astaroth’s more predatory senses come to the surface. But he is still himself, despite it, and so however reluctant he is to let the creature go, the knife is removed but it provides enough space for both of his hands to find the cane, to keep prying it away from her.

"If you insist." He grits out, and he continues to pry, giving her the opportunity to sear through the flesh with the chakram, to take the kill for herself even if his dark gaze remains glued on it, like should it try to make a go for him he might forgo the entirety of cane and knife and use his teeth instead. He’d had a rock slider shift once upon a time, so he believes he’s got enough of an idea of how much he can and can’t get away with in regards to the beast.

Let alone how many times he’d dealt with them in the past.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //

I'll drown eventually so don't save me

It was a lot to ask for, wasn't it. After fucking up, and then taking her rage and confusion out on him, only to land herself in trouble she should have seen coming, and still dare to demand things like holding back and giving her the kill. No matter that they hadn't come to an agreement around wars and duty and responsibility, Maea could at least recognize how willful she was being. According to Charlie, that was perfectly alright - but she still thought it would be best to try and make it up to this man anyway. Apparently she'd made a declaration of friendship with him. And apparently he was honoring it even when she acted like a lunatic.

There was not enough room to slice cleanly at the snake's throat. So instead Maea pressed the burning weapon against the scaly hide and pushed. She could feel every inch of muscled body tense and struggle around her as the pain ate into the snake, but while she felt awful to extend its suffering like this, she didn't let go. Even when her breath was squeezed out of her, even when the armor couldn't absorb all the damage and her ribs began to creak and groan and splinter - with red blood bubbling and dying her lips she kept going until her own hand was soaked in crimson to the elbow from the hot, precious lifeblood the serpent shed.

Then the blade hit an artery. And in a torrent of blood that likely splattered them both, the rock-slider shuddered and grew limp in Astaroth's grip. Maea inhaled a hoarse, painful breath when the death grip around her body eased up, and a final slash ended the battle.

And for a moment all was utterly still, and silent.

Maea

// with our one foot in the grave //

Despite everything, the butcher continues to keep to his word, and it’s with a bit of disbelief (and hunger honestly the second the iron tinges the air) that Astaroth continues to pry at the rock slider’s coil with the cane — missing the bladed one he had previously. But it works well enough as he finds, because rather than clean slicing, Maea’s pressing the burning blade against the beasts hide until it finally started to panic a bit more.

Then, as Maea hits an artery, blood sprays against him and his clothes, a wrinkle forming on his nose as he notices that it’s gotten into his sleeve, but he imagines he might be able to get it out. The blood on his face and neck certainly don’t matter to him, as he steps back and removes the cane from the coil when the rock slider goes limp and in the stillness he brushes back the dark hair that’s fallen into his face, two fingers swiping against the blood on his skin, bringing them to his lips as he lets her take a moment to herself.

And after a few more moments Asta extends a hand to help her out of the pile of coils and pieces of rock slider. “I don’t have anything that can heal, unfortunately.” He offers into the quiet, though it wouldn’t be surprising that he does not.

Astaroth

// while the other one's kicking its way right down to hell //