[Training] Idle hands are the devil's friend

You're so cold

but you feel alive

Some teacher, that wouldn't look at his student. Who let his own personal problems get in the way of teaching a lesson. Quite unproffessional, she thought and nocked the new arrow.

"It's quite simple," she said, actually deigning to reply. Draw, hold, aim, lose, miss. "You could have said, 'Hi Phoebe. I don't love you." Arrow up, bow taught, the grip pressing into the palm of her hand as she pulled the string tighter, a little further back than before.

"You could say, 'I don't want to be married to you, so I'm leaving now.' And then you could have walked away." Draw, aim, loose.

Hit.

The arrow thumped into the left shoulder of the dummy. It quivered for a moment, then grew quite still as Maea squinted at it, wondering what she had done differently this time. Her tone as she spoke suggested that he still hadn't reached her, had not penetrated the layers of her ice - it had thickened a bit, growing denser with each weak excuse he made.

"But you said nothing."

lay your hands on me

one last time

MAEA

and if you want, i could tell you the truth

that this life takes a toll on you. i spend nights

She begins to reply, and he can’t help the slight shake of his head to that. It wasn’t that simple, because she’d known all those things. She’d known it all, and yet still went along with it – and he had too, had given into her because she had that power over him, held it over him, fought with him over the terminology he used, the binding verbal contracts that he seemed to always walk into regardless of how prepared he was for them.

He draws his bow as well, pulling it back and watching it sail through the air to hit the dummy in the neck, right along the jugular, right along where the woman beside him had kissed him, and he exhales a sharp short breath as he turns to her and watches her own arrow hit. “Good.” He rumbles, spending time to let her figure it out while she too chides him in a way. It was only fair, however, he’d burned them, and he can feel it within him as he draws his arrow back again.

“You’re right, I said nothing. Because I’ve said it all before and it doesn't matter. It's an excuse. I don’t love her. I don’t want to be married to her. I don’t want to be married at all.” He heaves for a breath, letting himself still enough to let the arrow fly through the air. “But it doesn’t matter, because then I’m turning it around on myself, looking like the selfish prick she makes me believe I am when she should get exactly what she wants at everyone else’s expense.” Fanged teeth clench when the arrow hits the opposite shoulder of Maea’s with a loud thunk.

He exhales a rasping sound, shaking his head and returning his attention to her, some sort of flame buried beneath that cracks and burns, igniting a wildfire within him. “Shoot again.” His voice is hoarse, the frustration evident. “She gets under my skin, fucks with my head in a way that I just, I stop trying.” A defeat as he goes to watch her shoot again.

stitching up the loose threads of my soul

so in the morning i'm bullet proof

SuNJATA

You're so cold

but you feel alive

"You're right. It really doesn't matter."

For the first time there's a crack in her voice as she answered. Her jaw clenched as she forced down a steadying breath - don't think, don't feel, don't show - and she did as she was told. Found fletching under her fingers, pulled free wood and metal from a sheath of leather to hold it against the limb, ply the string, breathe and aim and loose.

The arrow thunked into place a hands breath beside the first, deeper into the chest now. A pierced lung, possibly a severed artery. She was bleeding on the inside too, because it was all excuses and no explanations in the world could baindaid this wound. Tried, so hard, to cover it up with the frost, with the cold, the storm and the LongNight dark and just. not. care.

But it didn't work that well, because Maea was good at silence and play pretend. Not bandaging wounds. Not offering comfort, or support. Did he expect her to save him? She couldn't even save herself.

"You put the ring back on."

And there it was. The gaping hole in her trust, laid bare for him to see. In all its mangled glory, ragged and oozing. Maea had offered him to come closer if he let go of his misery, cut him free and tried to change things for the better. If he took off the ring. She thought she shouldn't have to say that the thing would have to stay off.

She thought that part was obvious.

lay your hands on me

one last time

MAEA

and if you want, i could tell you the truth

that this life takes a toll on you. i spend nights

Her voice cracks, but she follows his command. And he can’t quite keep the frustration from becoming exposed as he clenches his jaw and watches the arrow land. “Again.” He too, takes another arrow and nocks it into place and points it at the ground, stepping close to her but only briefly as he goes to stand on the opposite side of where he’d just been, turning his attention the other way as he lifts the bow once more. He pulls the string back, letting the arrow fly once more as he holds his breath, watching as it lands in the space a heart would be with yet another loud thunk.

’You put the ring back on.’ And he had, and he’d realized that if he were to take it off, that she would know, and he only clenches his jaw further, waiting for her to lift the bow and shoot once more. “She knows when I take it off.” He looks to her then with a sort of deadened stare, a quiet sorrow to his gaze. How he’d found out in Halo that it would burn and burn, the way he’d felt when he’d watched her tinker with it on her finger, how much those damn enchantments had fucked everything up.

He can’t help the tight set to his jaw, the drawn look across his face, the other mask coming up of burning up from within, the wildfire spinning out of control, carefully held in place by cobwebs and shade. “What was I supposed to do? Show up without it and tell her everything? No.” It was likely Phoebe had already guessed he’d done something at this point, but he kept it tight under wraps. If she told Phoebe, well, he’d deal with it one way or another. "I saw Jigano that day at the river, too, he would have asked questions." He says with a quiet sharpness, grimacing enough that the fangs show slightly.

But he was in a mess, a spiraling out of control destruction of a hurricane with him at the eye and no sign of it stopping.

stitching up the loose threads of my soul

so in the morning i'm bullet proof

SuNJATA

You're so cold

but you feel alive

But that was just the thing, wasn't it? He could have told Jigano, told Phoebe, told everyone what he'd done, and she would have stood by him in it. That's exactly what he should have done. And Maea sucked in a shuddering breath when his rejection of the idea stabbed at her like so much broken glass. It was just plain truth, wasn't it? He cared far more about the opinions of others than of his own wants and needs, and those wants and needs ranked sky high compared to her own pathetic little attempt at pride.

"So instead I should just stay your dirty little secret?" she pressed in a wounded whisper, and the ice was cracking, breaking, caving under the relentless press of crimson waters. Red ice in her veins, cutting them open a little more with every thump of her heart. It beat so heavily, pounding hard enough in her chest that she thought he couldn't possibly avoid hearing it. Her chest felt hot, the skin on her back burning and tender, something tight and prickly stinging at the back of her eyes and closing the throat on her.

"Keep your secrets and make myself a liar, a cheat and a fraud? Thank you. I'm glad you're letting me know what I'm really worth."

Gods, it hurt. She couldn't bring herself to lift the bow again, and as she stared off in the distance, trying her damndest not to cry - Ludo knew, how she hated crying -  it just slumped down, hanging limp in a listless grip.

lay your hands on me

one last time

MAEA

and if you want, i could tell you the truth

that this life takes a toll on you. i spend nights

He pauses in his own frustration, his own spiraling as she begins to speak, a wounded whisper that he can hear vividly with the earring in his ear, as though she’s speaking to him directly, and he clenches his teeth again with a muscle feathering in his jaw as he lifts his bow once more and focuses on the target, hastily as he inhales a rough shaking breath. “I don’t care who you tell.” He tells her, and while he does… well, perhaps dealing with the consequences would be easier in the end rather than dealing with them up front. He watches the arrow miss by a hair once more, slipping past where the dummy’s ear would have been.

But she continues, and he shakes his head to that, slinging the bow over his shoulder as he steps over to her then, hearing her shatter and break in her words alone. “You aren’t though. It’s me.” He tells her, shadowed gaze at her back, he’s always been the problem, the one thing in common with everything that’s fallen apart in his life was with his direct involvement. “You’re worth so much, Maea. And I’m sorry I ruined it for you.” The apology is open, hoarse, broken as he is. He doesn’t care if she knows secrets and history of him that nobody else does, if she takes it to ruin him. In fact, he’d probably deserve it for what he’s done. And yet he can’t find the words to say it.

He approaches her then, slowly, reaching down to lift her bow. “Again.” A softer request this time.

stitching up the loose threads of my soul

so in the morning i'm bullet proof

SuNJATA

You're so cold

but you feel alive

'I don't care who you tell.' But he does, because if he really didn't care then he wouldn't be so concerned with hiding it. 'It's me.' But if it had only been him then why did he drag Phoebe's name into the conversation at every turn? Was she only a shield to hide behind, or did he just not know how deep his own feelings for the woman ran? 'You're worth so much...'

"Bullshit," she said, and laughed. It was a hollow, bitter sound that died just past her lips, falling limp and flat to the ground like so many dead fish. "If you really thought me worth something, you should not have a problem telling people about me.

"If you didn't care whether people knew you kissed me, you would muster the guts to stand up and tell them. But you aren't, and you won't."

He came towards her, took the bow, raised it along with her hand. But Maea simply let go and backed off, shaking her head.

"I told you I would keep your secrets. I'm not breaking my word. But I'm not going to stay around you like this either. Come back if you ever find that having me around is worth sacrificing a little. Face, pride, your own ego... I don't care. Just don't think I will listen to anything as long as you chain yourself to that ring and that woman.

"If you can't even make up your own mind then there is no point to this." She turned, meaning to leave. Maea was a little surprised to find that the floor was not covered by blood. It felt as though it ought to be, considering how much she bled on the inside.

lay your hands on me

one last time

MAEA

and if you want, i could tell you the truth

that this life takes a toll on you. i spend nights

She laughs a hollow bitter sound, and he clenches his jaw to that, listening as she continues on and he shakes his head it. “I tell them and then what? If you stand beside me it’s not a good look, not a good idea.” He begins, slinging his bow along his back and stares quietly at her back as she lets go of the bow and makes to leave. “I told you I don’t have a good reputation. It’s not on you. And they’re going to look at you with that same shame and disbelief and bewilderment like they did to me when I got married.” He says, breath hitching here and there as he catches his breath, leaves the bow in the dirt as she continues to speak.

He remains standing where he is, jaw aching with the amount he’s clenched it these last few days. “What do you want out of it? For me to declare myself yours?” He asks suddenly, the frustration evident within him, raging and warring with one another inside. He wants no marriage, wants no children, wants nothing of what it seems like everyone else around here has. And even still, she hardly knew all the intricate details of his past and what he was like, what he’s become – just the bits and pieces of points that mattered, that turned and shifted his history into creating that very same hidden shadowed man he’s become. Did she want him to claim to be with her forever, to give her the world on a platter, when all he'd done was kiss her and craved the attention she'd given him?

Perhaps he’s better off if he were to meld into the shadows and disappear, perhaps it would answer all of everyone’s questions – he’d gotten too involved in a place he can’t run from, a place he can’t disappear like he had after Lusea’s death and he’d traveled to a different country to get away, a place where they didn’t know his name, didn’t know his face.

He couldn’t be lucky enough to get that twice.

stitching up the loose threads of my soul

so in the morning i'm bullet proof

SuNJATA

You're so cold

but you feel alive

Looks, reputations, other people, bla bla bla... It wasn't until he asked what she wanted that Maea stopped, and turned slightly to look at him. Because it was the first time he had actually asked her that, and she realized... that she didn't know. How could she? This wasn't love. Barely even worth calling a crush. He'd swept into her life on a river tide and turned her upside down... and that was bullshit too because in the end it was only a kiss. Only a few kisses. And maybe a little hope she hadn't been quick enough to smother, that perhaps the light he let into her gloomy, lonesome life might linger.

Did she want him to be hers? Did she even want to be his?

"No. I just wanted to trust you."

And that had been the biggest mistake. Because she had known what he was the moment he started flirting with her despite the ring on his finger. If he could pull it off after just one kiss, then nothing prevented him from slipping it back on again. And she'd known it could happen and now it had, so why in the Abyss was she standing here all shook up?

Because she had gambled on trust, and lost. She had given him an offer and seen him take it, take advantage of the good parts, and then back on his own actions the moment she was out of sight. It wasn't even about whether she wanted more kisses or not, it was the betrayal of it. Because he knew she didn't want to be a cheat, and her outstretched hand had been an offer for him to make it so that she wouldn't be. So that she could stand tall and admit that she liked him, without feeling shame.

But that was all in ruins now, and the shame was in her gut along with the pain, and... there they were.

"What do you want, Sunjata?" she asked him, for the second time. Maea did not expect him to have an answer this time.

lay your hands on me

one last time

MAEA

and if you want, i could tell you the truth

that this life takes a toll on you. i spend nights

No, she can’t trust him – he’d taken it and broken it careless about the consequences for it. But they were here, given in the way that she shakes and trembles, and he knows he’s done something harsh and cold and awful. In his frustration, his annoyance with every situation he finds himself in as of late, he finds that he doesn’t care anymore. He’s given up, that no matter which step he takes, it’s wrong and spins him in an endless circle that dives toward that self-destruction further and further.

She had wanted to trust him, and here he was a liar, a devil seducing with sweet lies. Perhaps he is the monster he’s heard of himself as, the fangs and claws and horns. Perhaps he deserved whatever comes for him in the night. Perhaps he deserves all of it, to be pushed under the currents of the water until he drowned with the rest of the sins he’s committed. So he just stares at her, watching her with his jaw set tight, bow slung over his shoulder, a huff of a sigh parting his lips. “You shouldn’t have.” Because he couldn’t even trust himself – promising Hotaru he’d stay away from Phoebe, agreeing that it was better that way.

To marrying her a few short weeks later.

And all he can do is blame it on himself, on the weaknesses that he leans on, the crutches he had, when Lusea’s last words to him had been exactly the opposite of what he’s doing. So he bricks himself up with steel and sharpened weapons, cool mask crossing over his face, shutting her out and shutting everything out. And when Maea asks him, for a second time, what he wants. Well, the monster within him writhes and lashes out with the warring within him, the weak versus the strong, and he reverts back to the man he was after his trial, shut out and quiet, a silent monster of plotting with the blood on his hands, and he turns slightly away from her.

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” And it doesn’t, because the minute he explains what he wants, it’s as if Caido can hear it and takes it in its clutches, crushing it to ash and dust in its wake to surround him and mock him. And so he chooses to not want, to try and flow, to shift and adapt, but he’s drowning in an endless sea with no land in sight, an anchor forgotten at the bottom of the sea, turned to ice and rusted beyond recognition. And when he glances back to her there’s nothing but cold, dark seas, vast and empty in his eyes.

stitching up the loose threads of my soul

so in the morning i'm bullet proof

SuNJATA

You're so cold

but you feel alive

A silence fell at his reply came. As it grew heavier around them, as he turned away and fell back into the own private hell of darkness and despare he had built around himself, Maea watched him. It was strange how piercing such misty eyes could be. As though she'd learned the trick of molding those swirling clouds to her will since their last meeting. The current of change was one she had become familiar with, and tried to ride with elegance and grace, but... how had she come this far, that she could look at Sunjata and see her own miserable state before this tale truly begun? Before a SparkBird landed on a perch and told her that miracles could come true?

It wasn't as though Maea had clawed her way out of solitude and misery on her own. Every step of the way someone had been there to help her. Jigano, Evie, Sam, Peter and Adam too. Rexanna, to some extent and oh, Ludo. Always Ludo, who answered prayers when no one else did.

She looked at Sunjata the way she had that day on the riverbank, when she dared brave her own preconceptions to see the man beneath. Doing it again, she saw past the handsome face and the rogueish nature, to the broken, bleeding fool in him. Who thought nothing of himself, who hurt people at every turn and had become so used to people arguing with him that he tried to throw himself at anyone who did not. He was a curious mixture of selfish and selfless, the way he took all the responsibility upon himself but also refused to change his ways.

A loveable rogue. A fishman stuck on dry land. A Flood too far from the ocean.

"It matters to me," she said, and caught the cold, hollow gaze he leveled at her. Turning back to face him, Maea met him head on and didn't flinch away from the cold sea  - she was ice, and night and a lover of monsters, remember?

"I want to know if you intend to try and win that trust back. Or if I should actually give up on you. Just this one time, tell me what you really want. I promise, I will keep it a secret."

And for all the pain, for all the hurt and betrayal she felt, the girl still smiled at him. A little sad, a little lonely and all kinds of aching as she stepped over the crushed glass of a shattered dream.

Where do we go when we cannot go back?

Again she threw down a lifeline, to see if he still had the will to reach for it.

lay your hands on me

one last time

MAEA

and if you want, i could tell you the truth

that this life takes a toll on you. i spend nights

”It matters to me.” Did it? Or was it just yet another attempt that people took to try and shift him to what they thought was right, to tug and pull on all the different angles of him until he was unrecognizable. Perhaps he should forgo his human skin, slip into that of the orca and dive into the cold brisk sea of Halo to spend the rest of his days, hollowed and cold and alone where he couldn’t hurt anyone else, least of all himself. Perhaps he could simply sink to the bottom and drown himself with it, too.

Maybe then he’d be happy.

But she turns to him, catches his gaze, his darkness, and he knows that he can’t give her what she wants – he’d latched onto her because she’d been the first to give him attention despite the marriage, despite everything else, to see through the shadows and horns on full display and still not shy away. Intrigued, bright, a loreseeker’s mind beneath it that calculated and understood. And so he sighs, when she asks him if he intends to try and win the trust back.

’Yes.’ He wants to say. But he wants to do it as her friend, like they should have been at first before he’d wrapped her up in his arms, before her body had been against his and he couldn’t help himself but to kiss her. He can still feel her lips at his neck, soft and tentative and unknowing, and he clenches his teeth hard against it.

What did he want?

“I want to help you train. I want to be your friend. I want your trust.” He finally says. “But I can’t be anything more than that.” A line drawn in the sand as much as he dislikes it. Something he needs to keep to, a boundary he needs to keep. “I want to help those that want to learn to fight for themselves, so that nobody can take advantage of them again.” Like he’s being taken advantage of now. “I want the ocean, I want to pack up and leave and never look back when I find it.” His voice is hoarse, cracking slightly with the use of it all. His gaze remains on her, waiting to see if she does stay, or if she keeps moving. He wouldn’t blame her if she did.

And there it is, what he’s always wanted to do. To fight for those that couldn’t fight for themselves, even if it meant being on the wrong side. The rebel, the defector, the self-defense, the only goal in his life is to help and thrive along the sands and salt waters somewhere, somewhere other than here.

stitching up the loose threads of my soul

so in the morning i'm bullet proof

SuNJATA

You're so cold

but you feel alive

For a moment, she thought he wouldn't answer. It was one of the longer instances in her life, rivalled only by the sight of a broken door and an empty house after a LongNight spent away, and the close, sweet, suffocating darkness she had felt within Ludo when it enveloped her, that one time. One was good, one was bad and this one? This fell somewhere in between. Because at least he considered her properly. Thought about what it was, even if perhaps the words would never cross his lips.

Until they did.

Well. It was a little late for 'just friends', wasn't it? Now that she knew what his mouth tasted like and how it felt to have his hands rake through her hair, how could she ever not think about it again? But the line he drew was one she had tried to uphold before, and now that he actually seemed to want to stay behind it... who was she to argue? Maea had made a promise. And there was more to her offer than the things he had thrown away, things that couldn't break unless she allowed them to.

Taking a moment to breathe, to steady herself and blink away the few tears that had stolen past her defenses, she hovered in place for a moment, as if undecided. Then her shoulders fell in a sigh, and without saying anything she came back towards him. Bent down, picked up the bow, and let it rest against her leg as she pulled a leather strip from a pocket to braid her hair back with. Once done, when the long, moonbright silk no longer fell down into her face, she resumed her place before the target and reached for the quiver.

"Caido is a large continent," she commented, calm as if none of this had even happened. "But it is surrounded by ocean on all sides. No matter which direction you walk in, you are going to find it eventually."

Finding an arrow, the girl notched it and raised the bow, sighting down the shaft, past the arrowhead to the dummy beyond. Plying the string back, she aimed, loosed, and smiled when the projectile smacked into the chest of the target. A handsbreadth from both of the first ones. A perfect triangle.

"Until you do leave... I suppose I will be here."

lay your hands on me

one last time

MAEA

and if you want, i could tell you the truth

that this life takes a toll on you. i spend nights

He would stay behind it, he’d keep comments to himself, he’d do what he should have done in the beginning before he’d given into temptation and swam beneath the currents. And he lays all his wishes bare before her, everything that he’s wanted, everything he’s tried to do before he’d spiraled it and broken it apart at the seams, shifting and turning and breaking with every attempt that he tries to do some good. It always ended up in destruction, at the cost of others, and it had broken him up on the inside from his seventeenth year.

It’s been almost a decade since, and he still hasn’t figured it out.

He exhales a quiet rasping sigh when she steps toward him, despite the silence. And he moves somewhat out of the way to let her pick up the bow, to hand her the quiver. And when she speaks, it’s as though nothing had happened just now – that there isn’t the slight gloss to her eyes of where tears had been, but he keeps up the charade. Focusing on her and her form, keeping it professional as he listens to what she has to say. “We can’t get there unless there’s more portals, I thought.” He rumbles slightly, finally spending a moment to catch his breath as he watches the arrow fly and hit directly in the chest.

“Very good.” He comments quietly. Moving to pull his bow off of his shoulder, glancing over her briefly when she speaks next. “As much as I want to forget about it here, I’ll be coming back.” His bar is here after all, the pieces of Lusea he has left. He pulls an arrow from his own quiver, pulling back on the drawstring and lets the arrow fly until it hits the space directly beside where she’d shot her last arrow.

“Would you ever consider going to explore? For the Loreseekers or yourself?” He asks quietly – a Natural, granted the world at her disposal. What did she want to do with it, if anything? The question is also a quiet prompt as he steps aside once more, to watch her try once more to get the hang of it, the strength of the tautness of the bow.

stitching up the loose threads of my soul

so in the morning i'm bullet proof

SuNJATA