[Frustration, worry, powerlessness, apprehension, uncertainty, fear. The emotions hung together, ever-shifting into each other and inseparable, a horribly churning miasma in her mind. Fang did her best to tamp down on it, to tell herself that it was all fine, that this changed nothing; it worked for a time, limiting the impulses to little flashes and fleeting bubbles.]
[But it didn't stop it from festering quickly, rising from her worry-stricken heart to the back of her throat like bile, and it was all Fang could do to keep it in check until she got back to the apartment. The woman rarely shied from expressing herself, but something about it all left her feeling raw, as if her skin all burned off, choked her vision down a single point and rendered her unable to hear anything but the pounding of her own heart. Fang couldn't cope with the uncertainty, didn't know how, and the door clicking shut behind her brought a kind of... safety with it. Fang set the line of fish she'd caught in the sink absentmindedly, numbly, as if her body was carrying on without her.]
[All of this, every lingering doubt Fang thought she had dealt with or carefully balanced rushing back at her with a vengeance... just because Lightning wasn't as she should be—wasn't where she should be. Because Lightning was here.]
[Her glass-like fragility broke. Fang spun on her heel with a frustrated yell, kicking one of the chairs around the small table. It bounced off the wall with a crack, miraculously unshattered, though a few joints had broken.]
[ Chariot had been out on her usual perch on the balcony, though putting together a series of proposal notes for a school project for the refugee housing area rather than anything to do with her usual star charts. It was such nervous work that she'd honestly thought the anxiety pulsing through the bond had been her own (it so often was) and hadn't even realized Fang had come in. It was because of that being lost within her own anxious thoughts that she was so startled, literally leaping out of her seat, when Fang had kicked the chair across the room.
She was quick to open the door, still in a panic state, until she saw Fang, saw the chair, the mark on the wall... ]
[And it was Fang's turn to be startled, so absorbed in her internal storm she hadn't realized Chariot was here. She spun back around, staring with her own look of shock. Her aimless anger froze--and quickly melted into a rare feeling of shame. Having a violent outburst like that in Chariot's home... no, their home, and while she was present...]
[Fang looked away after an awkwardly long moment, throat tight and shoulders sinking a fraction.] Didn't mean to scare you. Sorry. I'm—I'll fix it, promise.
[Fang didn't move. She wanted to, both closer and away. She wanted to say something. Chariot had told her, once, to ask if she needed anything. Now that she was teetering on an emotional precipice, now that she needed the shelter of the home her Bonded offered... Fang felt oddly paralyzed, like she couldn't reach out a hand or ask for it. She didn't know why; it should be so easy, after the things they've been through.]
[ Fang's body language spoke a great deal, but the emotions in the bond spoke even more so, and so much more clearly. Chariot was grateful for it, and it let her be the one to pick up the slack, making her way across the space towards Fang and taking up one of her hands with both of her own. ]
It's just a chair... [ It was. It ultimately didn't matter in the face of Fang obviously being in dire straights before her. She could feel the ache in the other's heart, the fraying of her mind. Like she'd been suddenly saddled with a weight far too heavy to carry on her own. ]
[Her fingers curled lightly into the grasp as Fang shut her eyes. To think that such a simple touch, Chariot's mere presence, could be so powerfully grounding, and entirely for reasons that had nothing to do with their Bond.]
[She swallowed, trying to center herself again, her shame waning into embarrassment. When Fang looked back at Chariot, she didn't mask her distress—but there was gratitude, too.]
I still ought to mind my temper. Home's a sacred thing, you know, [She murmured. It's been lifetimes since she's been able to say that word.] ...Thanks, for that.
[That Fang had a home. That she could find shelter from that horrible storm. That she wouldn't be alone in weathering it. It wouldn't exist without Chariot and her kindness.]
Home is this. Things are just things. [ Chariot's grip tightened, feeling the impact she was having on Fang, glad for it, knowing she was capable of easing away the daggers of her heart with at least some of the same grace Fang could for her. She knew how valuable the concept of 'home' was to Fang... and that was just what she meaned to be for her, in every moment she could. ]
When you're ready to talk... if you even want to talk... I'm listening. I'm here.
[She nodded, a slight hesitance to it. As forthright as Fang normally was, the last (the only) time she'd tried to talk about anything related to this, the individual had only half-listened before brushing her off.]
[Chariot wouldn't do that, she knew. Fang took a deep breath anyway.]
...you remember, what I told you before we Bonded? About comin' to terms with the things I've got to do in my world?
[ Chariot nodded, keeping Fang's hand within her own. ]
I remember. [ She remembered trying to explain to her about relativity, and how badly that whole situation went over, but she never forgot how important it was to Fang, and how much she had her idea of her own fate wrapped up within it... ]
Well. That friend's gotten spat out of the mirrors. The one I was counting on to clean things up, in case I don't get to be there—if I wasn't there.
[Even the possibility of it made her heart twist horribly, and her stomach feel like lead. She'd kept those thoughts at bay since they'd Bonded, but they returned with new scenarios in tow—that no one would be there.]
[Fang closes her eyes again, tilting her head slightly forward.]
And Light, she's... she's not like she ought to be.
[Fang loosened her hand in her Bonded's grip only to loosely, blindly twine their fingers together.]
I haven't seen Light look and act like that in a thousand years, [she said softly, a different kind of worry bubbling up and joining with the existing ones.] She's still Branded a l'Cie.
[Fang thought she'd told Chariot enough to frame that as a bad thing.]
... [ She definitely had. And that helped focus her in that moment as keenly as a sword itself, pulling herself in closer even as Fang's grip loosened. ]
A different time entirely... [ A thousand years was also a bit alarming, but Fang had told her something that suggested that possibility before, at least... ]
[Feeling Chariot shift closer, Fang leaned her head in, pressing their foreheads together. It soothed that last spike of worry somewhat.]
This place's turned a lotta people human. Guess we'll find out in a week if her Brand keeps growing. [And if it did, well... Fang would cross that chilling bridge when the moment came. She didn't want to think about it.]
Doesn't change a damn thing about her not knowin' what happens. And I... I don't think I can tell her.
Setting aside whether or not you think you can... [ Because she knew exactly where Fang was, saddled with a heavy amount of information that made things feel... very off balance, and honestly a little terrifying. A lot terrifying. ]
[Fang hadn't thought of it like that; the question gave her pause.]
...Feels like I do, but that's just me bein' selfish. I know I shouldn't. [The turnskin sagged a little, the inevitability of their tragedies suddenly heavy.] Won't change a damn thing—and if it did? That's how the world got into the right mess it is now.
It's like she's a ghost, only half-there as a memory.
... Then don't. Not now. [ Which just saying that made some bile boil up within her, and something... dark, coil just within the bond, something that was soaked in Chariot's own guilt and shame, dredging it up alongside her wisdom, and swearing that she wasn't just telling Fang to repeat her own sins. ]
What I mean is... If Lightning demands it from you, don't hide it from her, but right now, if it can't make any positive difference, or that enlightenment can't actually benefit her in any way, then don't burden her with it. When she feels she's ready for that truth... then you can share it. But for now, 'ghost' or not, she's still your friend, and what she needs in a strange, alien world is a friend. Not some harbinger of a future she may not be ready to hear about...
[Fang didn't want Chariot to be as right as she was. But... it did shift Fang's focus. She couldn't be so caught up in her own despair that she forgot to look after her friend. Without that missing experience, Lightning couldn't stand beside Fang the way she needed her to... but the reverse wasn't true.]
No one's ever ready to hear their only family doesn't make it, [Fang said quietly.]
[The turnskin breathed deep. She'd shoulder it, endure it, like she always did, even if Fang felt like a pillar of broken glass—all too-sharp edges and fragile strength.]
[...but all of that was a harsh truth. It felt dour and blunt—and almost alarmingly familiar. Fang lifted a hand to Chariot's cheek, opening her eyes.]
You make a strong case, even if it doesn't sound like you. [Even if it didn't feel like Chariot, that nebulous dark thing floating on the fringes of the Bond.]
[ Chariot let out a breath, not so much a sigh, but just breath, life leaving her chest, cycling back in just as slowly, calming her own nerves as she leaned into Fang's touch, her own eyes sliding closed. ]
Because I've been the one to hold on to a truth like that, keep it inside and away from someone who deserved to know.
[ She shivered, those dark, inky black tendrils clutching around her, the beat of her heart weakening beneath it. ]
But that was because I was ashamed of it. I had so much guilt and disgrace tied up in that truth that I didn't think of holding it like keeping someone out, but keeping toxic nature of that truth from hurting others...
And at some point, I thought... I should tell her the truth. To tell her everything I'd kept from her. But I kept allowing circumstances to hold my tongue, to give me an excuse to remain silent.
In the end I just wound up hurting her. Because the person that truth pertained to the most needed to hear it, and hear it from me. And I was too weighed down by my own self-inflicted penance to realize it.
[Gods, no, don't do this to her, not now. The encroach of that choking, familiar darkness in their Bond chilled Fang's blood; she'd seen it once before, the slow creep clear as day in retrospect. Haunted as Fang's mind was by thoughts of the Soulsong and Vanille tonight, she couldn't stop from drawing that terrifying parallel with Vanille shrinking and quietly breaking under the truth of Ragnarok, breaking well after the fact until she couldn't hear anything but the whispers of her guilt.]
[Fang didn't know if she had the strength to endure the additional dread—except that she would endure, no matter what it cost her. She couldn't let darkness like that fester again, even if she was just as clueless how to stop it as she's always been.]
[Her hands left Chariot's grasp and cheek so Fang could pull her Bonded into a tight embrace, as if the heavy pulse of her heart could carry Chariot's.]
[ The tightness of the embrace caught her a bit by surprise, as well as its suddenness, but it certainly helped, the warmth of Fang, the rhythm of her heart and how it beat for Chariot, pushed away the darkness of her own sins back, at least for the moment.
Her hair shifted, spilling out into red across her shoulder, and she buried herself against Fang, taking in several deep breaths, focusing on her scent, the familiarity of it, the warmth... ]
I don't... I don't think I can say it's that finished. But it's a process... and we're all still healing.
You and Lightning... you'll heal too. I'm sure of it.
[Fang pressed her cheek to Chariot's head, still holding tight, like she could keep that horrible guilt from getting back in.]
Sure, after we deal with what's hurtin' us in the first place. [She had no illusions for that: either she'd succeed and have her chance to heal, or there would be nothing to heal, after a one-way trip to oblivion.]
[She sighed, and gently nuzzled her hair.]
Sure felt like you're still weighed down with that self-inflicted penance. Probably heal faster without it.
Setting it aside... is not so easy. [ Chariot sighed, nuzzling into Fang, feeling herself start to sort of just figuratively melt into her, supported by her strength, but trying to be supportive herself all the same. ]
Healin' isn't, ether. [Fang shifted her embrace to more comfortably support her Bonded's weight. That glimpse of grasping darkness would haunt her, add to her worries, but... being strong for Chariot was easier than being strong for herself.]
Guilt's like rot. It poisons you and festers in those wounds if you don't do anything about it. [Fang's jaw clenched, her throat suddenly feeling tight again. A fierce, but somber, feeling rose in the Bond, something that blurred the line between desperate and determined.] I've seen what it does. I'm sure as hell not gonna watch you slip away, too.
[ It was impossible to miss the weight of those words, even without the Bond between them, as Fang's grip tightened around her, and Chariot felt her heart start to beat in earnest once more, though not having forgotten at all what was clawing at it in the first place. ]
Fang... [ Chariot lifted her head to press a kiss along Fang's jaw, reaching to comb through her hair and cradle her there, to assure her that she was indeed in her arms, heart still beating... ] I won't slip away... I promise... I'll come to terms with this, some day.
[ Akko and Diana had already forgiven her. She'd not quite forgiven herself. But between Fang and Ramesses... she was coming along. And she couldn't begin to express her gratitude. ]
[Fang breathed deep, exhaling slowly, her own heart thrumming a little harder. A promise. Those weren't ironclad, but with the Bond, feeling Chariot's intent behind it... Fang was still a wreck of worry and uncertainly, but a little of it drained from her body.]
I'm gonna hold you to that, [Fang murmured, her tone firm. She lifted her head in turn, giving her a worn smile and pressing her lips against the Witch's forehead.] Don't you ever forget that I feel the same, got it?
[The Lightning of her time believed Fang could do away with Vanille's darkness. For all she was determined to try, Fang wasn't convinced. But maybe, if she could help fight Chariot's, even just a little... she could come to believe that, herself.]
...Tell me about it, someday. [Whatever it was that hurt her so badly, that sin Chariot spoke of that first night.]
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Oct 1st, after new arrivals
[But it didn't stop it from festering quickly, rising from her worry-stricken heart to the back of her throat like bile, and it was all Fang could do to keep it in check until she got back to the apartment. The woman rarely shied from expressing herself, but something about it all left her feeling raw, as if her skin all burned off, choked her vision down a single point and rendered her unable to hear anything but the pounding of her own heart. Fang couldn't cope with the uncertainty, didn't know how, and the door clicking shut behind her brought a kind of... safety with it. Fang set the line of fish she'd caught in the sink absentmindedly, numbly, as if her body was carrying on without her.]
[All of this, every lingering doubt Fang thought she had dealt with or carefully balanced rushing back at her with a vengeance... just because Lightning wasn't as she should be—wasn't where she should be. Because Lightning was here.]
[Her glass-like fragility broke. Fang spun on her heel with a frustrated yell, kicking one of the chairs around the small table. It bounced off the wall with a crack, miraculously unshattered, though a few joints had broken.]
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She was quick to open the door, still in a panic state, until she saw Fang, saw the chair, the mark on the wall... ]
F-fang?! What's going on?!
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[Fang looked away after an awkwardly long moment, throat tight and shoulders sinking a fraction.] Didn't mean to scare you. Sorry. I'm—I'll fix it, promise.
[Fang didn't move. She wanted to, both closer and away. She wanted to say something. Chariot had told her, once, to ask if she needed anything. Now that she was teetering on an emotional precipice, now that she needed the shelter of the home her Bonded offered... Fang felt oddly paralyzed, like she couldn't reach out a hand or ask for it. She didn't know why; it should be so easy, after the things they've been through.]
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It's just a chair... [ It was. It ultimately didn't matter in the face of Fang obviously being in dire straights before her. She could feel the ache in the other's heart, the fraying of her mind. Like she'd been suddenly saddled with a weight far too heavy to carry on her own. ]
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[She swallowed, trying to center herself again, her shame waning into embarrassment. When Fang looked back at Chariot, she didn't mask her distress—but there was gratitude, too.]
I still ought to mind my temper. Home's a sacred thing, you know, [She murmured. It's been lifetimes since she's been able to say that word.] ...Thanks, for that.
[That Fang had a home. That she could find shelter from that horrible storm. That she wouldn't be alone in weathering it. It wouldn't exist without Chariot and her kindness.]
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When you're ready to talk... if you even want to talk... I'm listening. I'm here.
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[Chariot wouldn't do that, she knew. Fang took a deep breath anyway.]
...you remember, what I told you before we Bonded? About comin' to terms with the things I've got to do in my world?
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I remember. [ She remembered trying to explain to her about relativity, and how badly that whole situation went over, but she never forgot how important it was to Fang, and how much she had her idea of her own fate wrapped up within it... ]
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[Even the possibility of it made her heart twist horribly, and her stomach feel like lead. She'd kept those thoughts at bay since they'd Bonded, but they returned with new scenarios in tow—that no one would be there.]
[Fang closes her eyes again, tilting her head slightly forward.]
And Light, she's... she's not like she ought to be.
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Oh boy. Stay focused on the topic at hand, Chariot. Fang was in a lot worse way than just some awkward conversations about bonds could put her. ]
Not as she ought to be? How do you mean?
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I haven't seen Light look and act like that in a thousand years, [she said softly, a different kind of worry bubbling up and joining with the existing ones.] She's still Branded a l'Cie.
[Fang thought she'd told Chariot enough to frame that as a bad thing.]
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A different time entirely... [ A thousand years was also a bit alarming, but Fang had told her something that suggested that possibility before, at least... ]
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[Feeling Chariot shift closer, Fang leaned her head in, pressing their foreheads together. It soothed that last spike of worry somewhat.]
This place's turned a lotta people human. Guess we'll find out in a week if her Brand keeps growing. [And if it did, well... Fang would cross that chilling bridge when the moment came. She didn't want to think about it.]
Doesn't change a damn thing about her not knowin' what happens. And I... I don't think I can tell her.
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Do you feel like you need to tell her?
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...Feels like I do, but that's just me bein' selfish. I know I shouldn't. [The turnskin sagged a little, the inevitability of their tragedies suddenly heavy.] Won't change a damn thing—and if it did? That's how the world got into the right mess it is now.
It's like she's a ghost, only half-there as a memory.
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What I mean is... If Lightning demands it from you, don't hide it from her, but right now, if it can't make any positive difference, or that enlightenment can't actually benefit her in any way, then don't burden her with it. When she feels she's ready for that truth... then you can share it. But for now, 'ghost' or not, she's still your friend, and what she needs in a strange, alien world is a friend. Not some harbinger of a future she may not be ready to hear about...
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[Fang didn't want Chariot to be as right as she was. But... it did shift Fang's focus. She couldn't be so caught up in her own despair that she forgot to look after her friend. Without that missing experience, Lightning couldn't stand beside Fang the way she needed her to... but the reverse wasn't true.]
No one's ever ready to hear their only family doesn't make it, [Fang said quietly.]
[The turnskin breathed deep. She'd shoulder it, endure it, like she always did, even if Fang felt like a pillar of broken glass—all too-sharp edges and fragile strength.]
[...but all of that was a harsh truth. It felt dour and blunt—and almost alarmingly familiar. Fang lifted a hand to Chariot's cheek, opening her eyes.]
You make a strong case, even if it doesn't sound like you. [Even if it didn't feel like Chariot, that nebulous dark thing floating on the fringes of the Bond.]
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Because I've been the one to hold on to a truth like that, keep it inside and away from someone who deserved to know.
[ She shivered, those dark, inky black tendrils clutching around her, the beat of her heart weakening beneath it. ]
But that was because I was ashamed of it. I had so much guilt and disgrace tied up in that truth that I didn't think of holding it like keeping someone out, but keeping toxic nature of that truth from hurting others...
And at some point, I thought... I should tell her the truth. To tell her everything I'd kept from her. But I kept allowing circumstances to hold my tongue, to give me an excuse to remain silent.
In the end I just wound up hurting her. Because the person that truth pertained to the most needed to hear it, and hear it from me. And I was too weighed down by my own self-inflicted penance to realize it.
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[Fang didn't know if she had the strength to endure the additional dread—except that she would endure, no matter what it cost her. She couldn't let darkness like that fester again, even if she was just as clueless how to stop it as she's always been.]
[Her hands left Chariot's grasp and cheek so Fang could pull her Bonded into a tight embrace, as if the heavy pulse of her heart could carry Chariot's.]
In the end, huh? Sounds like it's all done with.
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Her hair shifted, spilling out into red across her shoulder, and she buried herself against Fang, taking in several deep breaths, focusing on her scent, the familiarity of it, the warmth... ]
I don't... I don't think I can say it's that finished. But it's a process... and we're all still healing.
You and Lightning... you'll heal too. I'm sure of it.
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Sure, after we deal with what's hurtin' us in the first place. [She had no illusions for that: either she'd succeed and have her chance to heal, or there would be nothing to heal, after a one-way trip to oblivion.]
[She sighed, and gently nuzzled her hair.]
Sure felt like you're still weighed down with that self-inflicted penance. Probably heal faster without it.
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Guilt's like rot. It poisons you and festers in those wounds if you don't do anything about it. [Fang's jaw clenched, her throat suddenly feeling tight again. A fierce, but somber, feeling rose in the Bond, something that blurred the line between desperate and determined.] I've seen what it does. I'm sure as hell not gonna watch you slip away, too.
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Fang... [ Chariot lifted her head to press a kiss along Fang's jaw, reaching to comb through her hair and cradle her there, to assure her that she was indeed in her arms, heart still beating... ] I won't slip away... I promise... I'll come to terms with this, some day.
[ Akko and Diana had already forgiven her. She'd not quite forgiven herself. But between Fang and Ramesses... she was coming along. And she couldn't begin to express her gratitude. ]
I love you...
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I'm gonna hold you to that, [Fang murmured, her tone firm. She lifted her head in turn, giving her a worn smile and pressing her lips against the Witch's forehead.] Don't you ever forget that I feel the same, got it?
[The Lightning of her time believed Fang could do away with Vanille's darkness. For all she was determined to try, Fang wasn't convinced. But maybe, if she could help fight Chariot's, even just a little... she could come to believe that, herself.]
...Tell me about it, someday. [Whatever it was that hurt her so badly, that sin Chariot spoke of that first night.]
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