[ Her illness does not escape him. Is it Discord? The lethargy and pain in her person strikes him as strange, but not abnormal — don't humans grow ill easily, after all? They die to all sorts of sickness and afflictions of the body, weakening and tiring, and even if they recover, their forms are oft-incapacitated and forever affected. Is that what is going to happen to Ruby? He has her back, and she will waste away and die? ( Humans die, he knows, and as he is confident that he will outlive the majority of Kenos and its Shard-bearers, he is perplexed by his concern for this young woman. )
Unlike his sister, he is not a god of magic or healing. No spells come to him that he could use to soothe her, to draw down her fever or unknot the aches in her bones. All he can do is slip into the clutch of her trembling mind and push his innate, sun-warmed desert sands around her. Like limbs, or a nest of soft sands, enveloping her pain even as she shuts it away.
And then — he sees, in her mind's eye, the jars. Two of them, where he had known ( had thought ) he had seen one tumble away, into the darkness. For days he had begun to plot his vengeance, carving away the promise he had to Gen with the austerity of the wronged. He had outlined how to bring the most pain to him, not to even the odds, but to erase Minegishi Gen's dream from reality. To deny him the thing he wanted most, and find a way to make his suffering eternal. And now — those plans falter, and shake. ]
Are there really two there?
[ His mind stays, preternaturally still around her. Poised on the edge of danger, tense as a starving animal about to be let off the leash. His physical body is in motion, making his way to the nearest cornerstone so that he might slip out to the shrine and find her. Find what was his, and take them into his care once more. ]
no subject
Unlike his sister, he is not a god of magic or healing. No spells come to him that he could use to soothe her, to draw down her fever or unknot the aches in her bones. All he can do is slip into the clutch of her trembling mind and push his innate, sun-warmed desert sands around her. Like limbs, or a nest of soft sands, enveloping her pain even as she shuts it away.
And then — he sees, in her mind's eye, the jars. Two of them, where he had known ( had thought ) he had seen one tumble away, into the darkness. For days he had begun to plot his vengeance, carving away the promise he had to Gen with the austerity of the wronged. He had outlined how to bring the most pain to him, not to even the odds, but to erase Minegishi Gen's dream from reality. To deny him the thing he wanted most, and find a way to make his suffering eternal. And now — those plans falter, and shake. ]
Are there really two there?
[ His mind stays, preternaturally still around her. Poised on the edge of danger, tense as a starving animal about to be let off the leash. His physical body is in motion, making his way to the nearest cornerstone so that he might slip out to the shrine and find her. Find what was his, and take them into his care once more. ]