085 » so wake me up when it's all over

[dekinai]

[ah, the fire. the flames. the screams and the groans and the labored breaths of the dying. all of it is so familiar, so nostalgic, that it makes asahi think of home.

this isn't a homecoming, but the so-called warrior of light already feels as though he's returned to doma. rhalgr's reach doesn't have long grasses or the scent of the ocean on the breeze, no, but the imperials are slaughtering innocents, the encampments are being burned, and stragglers are running for their lives. old memories, lovely and faded and broken. people have thanked him for saving their wretched lives, but asahi doesn't even bother to keep up the facade of concern. they've all seen how he's unraveling, how he's been unraveling ever since the scions' operations entered ala mhigo and people began to speak in hushed whispers of zenos yae galvus. y'shtola has lowered her voice to talk about him when she thinks he can't hear; riol has been assigned to follow him from time to time, just to make sure that the vaunted warrior of light isn't so unstable that he needs to be put down. even now, when they have garleans to kill and resistance soldiers to save, alphinaud keeps looking anxiously over his shoulder at asahi's blank expression. asahi almost feels bad for the boy. it must be a jarring and horrible thing to realize that the savior of the savages is empty inside.

"what took you so long?" lyse cries when they finally near the northeast wing of rhalgr's reach. she pushes herself to a sitting position, nursing a broken arm while krile and alphinaud see to y'shtola's more life-threatening injuries. pipin and alisaie flank asahi, ready for battle alongside their friend, but asahi doesn't have eyes for them. zenos could sweep them aside like so much trash, and it wouldn't matter. zenos will sweep them aside as soon as he's given the chance.

asahi steps forward, his blade gleaming in the darkness, his dark eyes blazing with a love indistinguishable from hate.]

There you are, Lord Zenos.

[alisaie turns to look at him, her expression puzzled. she is distracted despite herself — this is not the asahi that she knows, but then he hasn't been the asahi that she knows for some time now. "'lord?' what do you mean by 'lord?' asahi, you can't be —"

coldly, he talks over her, ignoring her queries.]

How long I have waited for this...

Comments

[betweentheseconds]

[ Zenos had entered the fray with the faintest of hope that something or someone interesting might be present, but that hope was now all but dead. That the Ala Mhigan resistance still had it within itself to struggle, and that the rest of Eorzea had apparently begun to rouse itself to action was interesting, yes... but interesting was not enough to make his heart race. Nothing here posed a threat to him. And these others that have arrived and taken the field do not look particularly promising. But...

... 'Lord Zenos', is it? Behind his helm, his eyes narrow curiously. ]

...Have you, now?

[ He cannot place the face, but he can draw some conclusions as to just who this is. The savages have their 'Warrior of Light', don't they? A slayer of Eikons, nigh-peerless with a blade, the best Eorzea has to offer... Is this it, then? This plainly unhinged slip of a man, so eager to sink his blade into him that it's unseemly and unsettling?

Fine enough, then. ]

Come, then. I pray you won't disappoint me.

[ And he strides forward with the slow, uncaring steps of a man who fears nothing, a hand upon the hilt of his sword. ]

[dekinai]

[warrior of light though he may be, a distinctly unheroic laugh escapes asahi's lips as he lifts his drawn blade and settles into proper stance, lowering his center of gravity to be quicker on his feet. and, true, this is not unusual. true, zenos has met his share of men who claimed that they would kill him, whose anger and fury wavered in their eyes just like those of the little slip of a man before him now, who dropped into their battle stances and were killed in exactly the next instant. yet what is unusual is what asahi whispers, like a promise on the wind:]

I endeavor only to please you.

[then he lunges, catching zenos's blade in his own with surprising strength and bloodlust.

"asahi, have you gone mad?!" alisaie demands, wild and fearful and perhaps a little betrayed.

"there will be time enough for explanations later!" pipin reminds her, dutifully following asahi into battle.

gritting her teeth, alisaie follows his example and focuses on the battle at hand, casting a follow-up spell in a bid for zenos's life while asahi has him occupied. ah, the rabble. they will have to be dealt with.]