[ uh oh. they were so distracted by that strange emoji moon person they didn't see the pig.
she'd almost rather deal with cursed texts than this. at first, her thoughts were along the lines of sort of like cairo - parentless children running their own scams, the rough nature of the slums away from the heart of the city, away from the eyes of the ottomans. then it changed, and oh, did it change in a big way.
she doesn't believe in fate, though maybe it's a little funny, the kind of people who came together to form a team. the little things that are similar, because, well, it's kind of hard to relate to an apocalypse. the acute, specific pain that he's been through. ]
Vash-- [ she blinks away the memory, not quite sure which way to take this. or if she should at all - he'll probably hide from it again. that's okay. she'd hide it too. ]
[ Vash is frozen in place, posture stiff, and eyes still glued onto his phone. It feels like he's been holding his breath throughout the whole thing. ]
... About eight years ago.
[ And yet he looked the same as he does now whenever he saw his reflection in the mirror, aside from the black color that has been slowly taking the back of his head. Time means nothing to creatures beyond it, creatures so cursed their legends are passed down for the blight they've set upon the planet.
He puts his away his phone, unsure of where to start. Lost, afraid of what she might think, he musters the courage to lift his head and smile. ]
You and everyone here has been so kind. [ Lowering his hand, phone in tow, he grasps onto it with the other. Like hands in prayer. ] I'm not sure if I can ever repay you all, but... Thank you, Nahri.
[ He doesn't know how to convey how important it is to him to hear and know that she won't see him too differently. It's a taste of salvation, sweet yet bitter, because he also knows he shouldn't indulge the comforts of others.
[ she'd touch his face, but he's a little too tall so it's awkward. so she touches his arm. ]
And that's why I can't think of any other way. You keep trying to help others, no matter what. You've helped me--
[ hey guess what
pig time. ]
Nahri is on a boat - a ship, a warship if the bodies of shoulders are anything to go by. There’s a fire spreading up the rigging to the sail, creeping along the deck. The aforementioned bodies of slain soldiers lay piles of carnage, riddled with arrows. Yet her focus is not on them, as she picks her way closer to the other side of the ship, where two men are fighting. One of them is in iron cuffs, using them to choke the other. That is until he is able to throw off the first man and fire and arrow directly into his throat. Then a second, almost inhumanly fast, into his chest.
“Ali!” a third man cries - crouched nearby, holding the body of a fallen comrade full of arrows. There’s no response, and how could there be. Ali stumbles backwards and falls over the railing into the dark water below. Nahri runs to the railing, but she can’t see anything. Her vision gets watery with tears. She spins to face the man that fired the arrows. “Save him! I wish for you to bring him back!”
The man does not comply, instead swaying, swaggering, and it’s almost like a light leaves his eyes - like he was pulled out of a trance. “Nahri, I–”
“I’ll kill you!” screams the other man, grabbing a discarded weapon on the ground. It looks similar to a sword with a curved end. This man is not a soldier, and despite his rage and grief, he is no match for the man standing in front of him. His attempted attacks are easily deflected, and then he’s hit hard in the nose with an elbow. Black blood starts to ooze from it. “Enough al Qahtani. Your father doesn’t need to lose another son tonight.”
“Fuck you!” He’s still trying to get hits in. They don’t land. Blood keeps dripping down his face. “Fuck you and your sister-fucking Nahids. I hope you all burn in hell!”
Soldiers are rushing from the ship’s hold, with whatever weapons or broken pieces of oars they can find.
“Dara…” Nahri’s voice doesn’t carry well through the chaos, but he heard her this time. He raises a hand and the ship cracks, a wall of splintered wood separating them from the soldiers. It’s just the three of them and the bodies now.
Except Dara and the other man are still fighting, Dara is much more proficient, deftly disarming the other man and kicking him in the chest. “I’m sparing your life. Take it, you fool.” He turns and begins to walk away, but the other man refuses to let up.
“That’s right… run, you coward! That’s what you do best, isn’t it? Run away and let the rest of your tribe pay for your actions!”
Dara slows. The other man keeps going, his expression contorted by pure rage and grief, as he stands up, “Ali told me, you know, what happened to your kin when Daevabad fell. What happened when the Tukharistanis broke into the Daeva Quarter looking for you, looking for vengeance, and found only your family. Where were you, Afshin, when they screamed for you? Where were you when they carved the names of the Qui-zi dead into your sister’s body? She was only a child, wasn’t she? Long names, those Tukharistanis. I bet they were only able to fit a few before–”
Dara screams and is on the man in less than a second. The weapon in his hand transforming from a blade into a multi-tailed whip, studded with iron barbs. “You want me to be the Scourge?” he shrieks, lashing the man, who raises his arms to protect his face. “Will that please your filthy people? To make me into a monster yet again?”
All Nahri can do is stand there in shock, taking in the violent scene. At least until she makes the stupid, impulsive decision to grab Dara’s wrist, to stop him from flaying the man; strips of flesh have already been ripped from his forearms.
“Stop, Dara. Enough.”
He does stop, his hand trembling under her grasp. “It’s not enough. It won’t ever be. They destroy everything. They murdered my family, my leaders. They eviscerated my tribe. And after everything, after they take Daevabad, after they turn me into a monster, they want you.” He chokes on that last word. He raises his whip again. “I will flay him until he’s bloody dust.”
She tightens her grip, moving to position herself more between him and the other man. “They haven’t taken me. I’m right here.”
His shoulders drop, and he bows his head. “They have. You won’t forgive me the boy.”
“I…” She looks to the spot on the railing where Ali went over. “It doesn’t matter right now.” She nods at some ships approaching in the distance. “Can you make it to shore before they get here?”
“I won’t leave you.”
“I’m not asking you to.” She takes the whip from him. “But you need to let this go. Let it be enough.”
He takes a breath, and the man groans and curls in on himself in pain, as if reminding Dara that he’s still there.
“No.” He says.
Nahri takes his face in her hands and forces him to look at her. “Come with me. We’ll leave, travel the world.”
That gets him to nod. She tosses the whip over the railing and starts to lead Dara away, when the poor flayed man slowly staggers to his feet. From behind her, she hears him stammer: “Z-Zaydi?”
She looks and, there is something climbing up over the railing of the ship. Except it isn’t quite Ali. His body is an unsettling gray, embedded with lake debris: old hooks and shark teeth, shells and scales. Tentacles and water weeds are wrapped around his limbs. Water is seemingly oozing out of his pores, dripping on the deck. His eyes are completely black, with a slight shift to the color as if there’s an oily coating.
“Oh my God. Alizayd…”
“I wouldn’t do that, sand fly.” Dara says, pushes Nahri behind him and raising his bow.
The sound of Dara’s voice seems to attract Ali, and his head jerkily snaps towards him. He draws near, in an almost mechanical gait, and Nahri realizes he’s been whispering something that no one else seems to hear.
Kill the Daeva.
She can’t hear it so much with her ears, but in her mind. He’s closer now, and in the fire light she can see a bloody symbol carved into his cheek - an eight pointed star.
“Run!” Dara yells, as Ali produces a giant scimitar from behind his back. It looks like it’s been in the lake for long time: mottled with rust and oxidized green. The symbol on his cheek glows, and it’s like a wave of pressure bursts from him, across the ship, sending Nahri hurtling backwards into a pile of crates. They break as she lands, jagged wood slicing through her shoulder.
Dara has since rushed at Ali, but as Nahri climbs out of the smashed pile, she sees them near the center of the ship. Dara’s movements are slowed, and he can barely keep up with Ali. He knocks the blade from Dara’s hand and raises the scimitar for a killing blow. Nahri screams. But at the last moment, he changed course, instead severing Dara’s left hand.
Dara collapses onto the deck without a sound and his body crumbles into ash.
[ He watches this memory... And it isn't an unfamiliar sight. He has seen wars, rebellions, sieges, but to be stuck in the middle of it all and the desperation in the pact they try to make. Strife takes it all and it hurts to see. ]
Nahri... [ why does she suffer so many men!! ] You've been through so much.
[ she takes a deep breath. she wants to anchor herself to this moment, because she is here and not there again, but she still can't help but look like she wants to curl in on herself. it still hurts. ]
Maybe not any more than anyone else. [ to dismiss it is to try and throw the memory away, to not indulge in her grief again. ]
...Dara said he was a monster, too.
[ and he was. she knows he was. but that still didn't stop her from stopping him then, and it didn't stop her feelings for him either. ]
[ He looks over to her and carefully wraps an arm around her shoulder to pull her closer. If she wants to cocoon, then she can cocoon with more layers. ]
... He looks like just a man to me.
[ A hurt one, someone just ready to bare their fangs because that is all they remember to do, and he isn't sure if Dara is human. It doesn't quite matter because the memory reflects so many familiar beats and traits.
Hearts are not so different. They love and they bleed. ]
[ she cocoons, where it's nice and safe and warm. regardless of vash's past, she feels safe with him - wolfwood, too - she doesn't care how inhuman any of them are. it doesn't matter to her. ]
Not really.
[ not ever again, if she could help it. dara was just a man. a frustrating, complicated one at that, but she still found herself attached. she still had to watch him kill her friend and then watch him be killed in turn, when that thing parading as ali crawled back out of the lake. even then, coming back wrong like that, she can't consider him a monster either.
she's spent so much of her life alone, that when she finally opened up her heart and let them in and they both got so brutally ripped away with her, that she broke. not unlike the weekend before, when shenhe was brutally ripped away from them, and she broke down and spent the entire night crying. it hurts to get close, but she just can't seem to stop. because here she is, tucked under vash's arm. ]
[ Vash knows what it's like to lose the ones you care for in an instant. Aside from his catastrophic memory, his long lifespan has left him experiencing tragedy upon tragedy. For people like them who are drawn to love and to be loved, it never hurts less.
It will hurt as badly as the last when those people are taken away.
Quietly, he brings his other arm in and lets her hide in his embrace. He knows he can't guarantee shelter forever... He can't protect her here in this place, likewise he won't know if he can survive an encounter. ]
We can talk about something else... Since we're far, far away from there.
[ she just wants to take a moment to not have to worry about anything. it's true that neither of them are safe from this place, not really, but for a brief moment in time it doesn't have to feel like that.
so she'll just kind of vibe there, silently taking his offer to not talk about the most traumatizing thing she's ever seen, until she hesitantly speaks up again. ]
Well... I guess I can tell you, since I told Wolfwood earlier today, that I'm not one hundred percent human.
[ there isn't a normal human being on this entire team. ]
Yeah, it's-- a lot to take in. I know. [ even being a part of it, there was a lot going on, and a lot of things she won't even be able to explain, due to her own lack of knowledge.
but she knows where to start. ]
Daevas are fire beings. That's why, when Dara... [ she didn't want to talk about it but this is on her for bringing it up ] - That's why Dara turned to ash when he died. They don't have normal human bodies, even though they look like them.
I'm at least half. I'm not quite sure. [ she can't really be sad about not understanding her parentage since she's an orphan. it just muddies the waters and makes things more confusing. ] But there's still some human in me, so I pass well enough that no one suspected anything. I just got comments about my eyes a lot.
[ since they're jet black and unsettling for a lot of normies, but her icons don't really display this very well. ]
[ Vash is quiet at that, smiling at her apologetically. It's a sorry that they just circled back to that. ]
Plants, which is what I am... Nothing happens to them when they expire at the end of their normal lifespan, but if they're drained of all their energy, they blacken and wither. We usually don't look so human. My brother and I are different.
[ me sweating as I have to mention now that the back of Vash's hair is black, which is different from the blond at the beginning of the game. ]
I think your eyes are nice. They kind of remind me of Wolfwood's.
[ Who also has very dark eyes, kind of scary ones, too. ]
Plants... [ she rolls this information around in her mind. it isn't too hard to believe, after being whisked away to a land of magic where she's seen bird-men and literal fire-men and cursed creatures that live under the water. what's one more elemental being? ]
I can see how that'd be hard in the desert.
[ she's making a note of that withering comment, and his hair, but she can only be so rude and nosy at a time. besides, even if he does tell her oh yeah i'm dying btw - she doesn't really want to hear it. not now. but it's still a detail she'll tuck away for later.
the comment about her eyes gets her to soften up a bit. ]
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[ uh oh. they were so distracted by that strange emoji moon person they didn't see the pig.
she'd almost rather deal with cursed texts than this. at first, her thoughts were along the lines of sort of like cairo - parentless children running their own scams, the rough nature of the slums away from the heart of the city, away from the eyes of the ottomans. then it changed, and oh, did it change in a big way.
she doesn't believe in fate, though maybe it's a little funny, the kind of people who came together to form a team. the little things that are similar, because, well, it's kind of hard to relate to an apocalypse. the acute, specific pain that he's been through. ]
Vash-- [ she blinks away the memory, not quite sure which way to take this. or if she should at all - he'll probably hide from it again. that's okay. she'd hide it too. ]
When did that... When did that happen?
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... About eight years ago.
[ And yet he looked the same as he does now whenever he saw his reflection in the mirror, aside from the black color that has been slowly taking the back of his head. Time means nothing to creatures beyond it, creatures so cursed their legends are passed down for the blight they've set upon the planet.
He puts his away his phone, unsure of where to start. Lost, afraid of what she might think, he musters the courage to lift his head and smile. ]
This is why I said I was a monster.
[ Literally. ]
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I can't make you change your mind about yourself.
But I still can't bring myself to think of you that way.
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[ He doesn't know how to convey how important it is to him to hear and know that she won't see him too differently. It's a taste of salvation, sweet yet bitter, because he also knows he shouldn't indulge the comforts of others.
where is my mem kelsey opens my paw ]
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And that's why I can't think of any other way. You keep trying to help others, no matter what. You've helped me--
[ hey guess what
pig time. ]
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Nahri... [ why does she suffer so many men!! ] You've been through so much.
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Maybe not any more than anyone else. [ to dismiss it is to try and throw the memory away, to not indulge in her grief again. ]
...Dara said he was a monster, too.
[ and he was. she knows he was. but that still didn't stop her from stopping him then, and it didn't stop her feelings for him either. ]
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... He looks like just a man to me.
[ A hurt one, someone just ready to bare their fangs because that is all they remember to do, and he isn't sure if Dara is human. It doesn't quite matter because the memory reflects so many familiar beats and traits.
Hearts are not so different. They love and they bleed. ]
... You don't want to think about this memory.
[ Just to make sure. ]
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Not really.
[ not ever again, if she could help it. dara was just a man. a frustrating, complicated one at that, but she still found herself attached. she still had to watch him kill her friend and then watch him be killed in turn, when that thing parading as ali crawled back out of the lake. even then, coming back wrong like that, she can't consider him a monster either.
she's spent so much of her life alone, that when she finally opened up her heart and let them in and they both got so brutally ripped away with her, that she broke. not unlike the weekend before, when shenhe was brutally ripped away from them, and she broke down and spent the entire night crying. it hurts to get close, but she just can't seem to stop. because here she is, tucked under vash's arm. ]
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[ Vash knows what it's like to lose the ones you care for in an instant. Aside from his catastrophic memory, his long lifespan has left him experiencing tragedy upon tragedy. For people like them who are drawn to love and to be loved, it never hurts less.
It will hurt as badly as the last when those people are taken away.
Quietly, he brings his other arm in and lets her hide in his embrace. He knows he can't guarantee shelter forever... He can't protect her here in this place, likewise he won't know if he can survive an encounter. ]
We can talk about something else... Since we're far, far away from there.
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so she'll just kind of vibe there, silently taking his offer to not talk about the most traumatizing thing she's ever seen, until she hesitantly speaks up again. ]
Well... I guess I can tell you, since I told Wolfwood earlier today, that I'm not one hundred percent human.
[ there isn't a normal human being on this entire team. ]
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[ He had not known... Vash truly here thinking he was the only weirdo in their team. ]
They were saying a lot of names in your memory, so I wasn't sure what was what...
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but she knows where to start. ]
Daevas are fire beings. That's why, when Dara... [ she didn't want to talk about it but this is on her for bringing it up ] - That's why Dara turned to ash when he died. They don't have normal human bodies, even though they look like them.
I'm at least half. I'm not quite sure. [ she can't really be sad about not understanding her parentage since she's an orphan. it just muddies the waters and makes things more confusing. ] But there's still some human in me, so I pass well enough that no one suspected anything. I just got comments about my eyes a lot.
[ since they're jet black and unsettling for a lot of normies, but her icons don't really display this very well. ]
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Plants, which is what I am... Nothing happens to them when they expire at the end of their normal lifespan, but if they're drained of all their energy, they blacken and wither. We usually don't look so human. My brother and I are different.
[ me sweating as I have to mention now that the back of Vash's hair is black, which is different from the blond at the beginning of the game. ]
I think your eyes are nice. They kind of remind me of Wolfwood's.
[ Who also has very dark eyes, kind of scary ones, too. ]
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I can see how that'd be hard in the desert.
[ she's making a note of that withering comment, and his hair, but she can only be so rude and nosy at a time. besides, even if he does tell her oh yeah i'm dying btw - she doesn't really want to hear it. not now. but it's still a detail she'll tuck away for later.
the comment about her eyes gets her to soften up a bit. ]
Thank you... should I start wearing shades too?
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[ Just so she doesn't think they sprung from nature. They're results for freaky science experiments. Good idea, Nahri. This week is fucked.
There's a snort. ]
Wolfwood might think you're making fun of him. He's a little sensitive.
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So that's why you have so much energy? [ she's trying to lighten things a little - she means like a puppy. not. you know.
hm. maybe this isn't going over as well as she'd hoped.
at least they can talk about wolfwood instead. ]
--Really? But I think they make him look so mature and mysterious.
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[ He will take it as it is because she isn't wrong... And he won't think about their memories at all. ]
Mature is a word for it, I guess. [ Hm. ] But if you do get sunglasses, then you'd match with us.
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--I am feeling a little left out, though.
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Were you thinking similar shades to his? Or maybe something with color?
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I can get ones like yours!
[ pink ones.... rose colored ones, i daresay. ]
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[ Strokes his chin. ]
What color were you thinking?
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[ he gives her all the mileage for her joke. ]
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