[Hah! It's almost funny that Jayce seems to have more life in him after coming back from the dead. Whatever it was that Viktor did, it seems that it was more than effective. He's not sure how he feels about someone being brought back from the dead like this -- it makes him think too much about his own complicated relationship with life and death -- but what's important is that Jayce is alive with them now.
Completely unperturbed, Serph steps forward with the tiniest smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.]
Welcome back.
[He holds out the sheaf of papers in his hands: Jayce's own notes.]
[ viktor returned to him, is what happened. viktor gave him the one thing that was keeping him alive . . . ish. not only physically speaking— emotionally, viktor returned his purpose beyond reason. love could blind him to this. surely.
jayce wipes his hand off on a face towel taken from one of the bathrooms, and stops in his lumbering tracks when handed the notes. he doesn't know what to do with those, anymore. there is no dire need to leave now that his home is where viktor is—
after a moment of hesitation and thought in front of serph, jayce quietly takes them back. ]
Thank you, [ maybe he'll need them for the others. and something to do. ] guess I'll have more time, after all.
[Serph lets out a quiet huff of agreement. It's not often that one gets to cheat death. Viktor was determined indeed. He's not sure if the other man would be able to repeat that trick if it happened again.
Without the papers in hand -- he'd made his own copies of the notes -- Serph folds his arms, shaking out one pair of his wings before he asks-]
Not right now, [ he shakes his head at the same time he speaks, ] reassuringly.
[ he's had an entire factory reset after losing his heart and blood. jayce has a keen eye on any different symptoms, as per viktor's concern as much as his own. they're both scientists. observation is everything.
something dawns on jayce, though. a reminder, a memory, that takes a few moments to kickstart a furrow in his brows and a few consistent blinks: ]
[ jayce physically slumps from his posture with a reflexive breath out in stiffled relief. but should he really be relieved when it wasn't . . . well. one of those things that he shouldn't be thinking too hard about. ]
No, that's . . . That's good.
[ he hopes so, too. jayce doesn't even need to say it, his eyes speak loudly. they especially give away to a touch of wandering melancholy. he wouldn't want that sort of hunger to return, but. jayce doesn't know until what point he could even eat anymore. he hasn't for hours. days. he hasn't felt the need, neither the pit. he hasn't tried out of fear. ]
I haven't eaten since the accident. I don't think . . . I could, if I tried.
[Serph tilts his head. The hunger... even the usual hunger that humans experience... is gone? Is that a side effect of whatever Jayce is turning into? He hasn't forgotten Jayce's symbol that he'd been branded with; a skull, like it was mocking the concept of the needs of the flesh. Endless hunger, now none at all.]
You've been saved from Convoy food.
[The porridge in Serph's opinion? Horrible. Is that really what people normally eat?
He can't help but note Jayce using 'accident' to refer to his death. Serph would not call knowing his impending doom and having his chest sliced open, his ribcage caved in, and his heart capsized an accident. A small part of his brain whispers to him disassociation, distancing of the self from traumatic events, using softer language to cushion the mind from crushing reality.
But he doesn't press. If that's what Jayce needs to do to keep his mind working in the present...
More seriously-]
Maybe your mark and its changes affect your hunger. Or lack of it. [His bottom pair of wings unfold only to wrap around his waist.] The changes here are stranger than I initially thought. If you need help with anything at all... contact me.
[ heh, he snorts, even if he'd been so hungry since leaving their arrival point that he didn't care for the taste or bland seasoning. food was food when you were starving. he'd take the porridge over geckos.
but . . . serph is right. jayce could not bear to look at himself in the mirror with a bare chest. he could not bring himself to curve his neck and look inside of himself another time. all of this, from his accelerated death to a desperate attempt to save him—
it was not meant to be. there was no intention for any of it to be this way. it was a casualty. it was an accident. nothing more, nothing less. it helps his sleep stay silent. it helps him forget, sometimes, when the bandages are snug around his torso, that there were no barriers past his rib cage.
now, being needed? jayce thanks him with a steady bow of his head, regardless. the bow melds into a single shake. ]
I wasn't of much help before.
[ he was ill and deteriorating through most of it. he blasted a drifter he's pretty sure he sees around from time to time, and all they do is exchange these weird— glares. jayce doesn't know where to start with that (it should be an apology, but so much has happened he's barely had the mind for it). his mark was another story entirely though, and perhaps? it may be eating at him. ]
I don't even know where these changes start, and my . . . [ he gestures, ] condition begins.
[And it so happens that Serph is sleeping with (not like that) said blasted drifter Jayce is exchanging weird glares with.
Hm. There might be a lot that's new and strange to him -- Akechi's radio post reminds him of how limited his knowledge is. Jack has lived for forty times his own life -- but nevertheless he still asks Jayce-]
Can you tell me more about your condition?
[Knowing more about it would useful. And sometimes simply having another person to voice thoughts to can help, whether it's making sense of new knowledge or figuring out new ideas to explore. ...One of many things he misses about not having Gale around.]
[ where does he even start? jayce takes only a moment to hang his head and lift it high ]
This, [ he holds his wrist up, exposing the blue-tinted rune digging deep into skin and rooted, permanently, into the viens wildly colored up his arm, neck, face, eye— his entire left side. ] was supposed to kill me, eventually. Not as fast as it did, but, [ fingers splayed, he bobs his hand up and down, ] I have a theory the process was— accelerated, [ funny that it's called the acceleration rune and did just that. irrelevant to this, ] by the mark on my body, that I have reason to believe belongs to the Domain of the Undead.
[ he recites it, from memory: ]
The force of death, deterioration, and demise of all things, as well as rebirth and even breaking such patterns.
[ he shakes his head a bit, but only in disbelief. ]
[Serph peers curiously at the little speck of blue embedded in Jayce's wrist. It's such a tiny thing, but the way it causes distortions all over Jayce's flesh makes it look infectious. He'd seen that very seem strange webbing all over Jayce's insides, weaving over his ribcage in a way that made him want to see if it was stringy to touch.
He remembers that message well; he had first seen it from Blake. In conjunction with Jayce's skull for a mark... he could see it. While Jayce's death, deterioration, and demise had been accelerated-]
Your rebirth was made possible by a third force. Your partner.
[A force that was neither that of this world nor the object in Jayce's wrist, but a person with a grim determination to not accept death as the end.]
Let's not find out if you would have been reborn without him.
[ it's a chicken-or-egg question that will just end in jayce walking around in useless circles. it had been possible with viktor, and jayce owes him his new life, as crude and imperfect as it was. there were scars and literal, open wounds as proof of his choice, but it is not one jayce carries heavily, or with remorse.
he is filled with a shimmering glaze that shines right though his eyes. ]
I wouldn't want to. He gave me, [ his heart, his literal heart, he gave his all, he gave . . . well, jayce could only whisp a word out breathlessly, his fingers scraping at the bind of bandages underneath his shirt. ] everything.
[ since day one. starting with the gem on his wrist, that jayce rubs with his thumb, now— a circular, calming motion that he's done one too many times with an absent mind. he doesn't blame this killing him. he'd accepted that the moment he said take me back. i won't fail. i swear it. ]
He's my promise. After we got caught in the Moonwarp, I thought I lost him.
[ and that's why, for a moment, however brief— he'd gotten worse and given up. right in front of serph, so . . .
serph saw jayce in depth. at the end of his line and the start of his new one. knows he had a promise to keep, and watched him desist. he feels like he owes at least some reason for change of heart. very literally. ]
[Serph's expression softens, mostly around the eyes. He understands what it's like to have a person for a promise. He'd been drawn so inexorably to Sera, torn apart all who stood between them, done everything he could to reunite with her. And he had, for one brief, fleeting moment. But then he...
Serph dips his head in a nod.]
I understand. There's someone just as important to me.
[He won't fault Jayce for giving up in that moment. Serph had seen how grief had shaken the hearts of even his most stoic of comrades. There is no dishonour in losing faith when all seems lost.]
[Serph shakes his head, answering both questions. Though he clarifies-]
Nirvana is for all who want it.
[As the fighting was drawing to a close, there were some who expressed doubt or disinterest in going. As long as they didn't defy him he'd let them be. And now they are gone, like all the others.]
It's safer for Sera to be with the rest of my tribe.
[As much as it feels like a part of him has been missing since their separation, he doesn't wish this place upon her even if there are trees and a blue sky.
His expression softens a little, mostly around the eyes.]
[ it's a little harsh on jayce's leg to keep standing, so, he invites serph over to the truck with a silent gesture, at the very least enough for him to lean his weight on the vehicle's side and take some pressure off the strain of his brace. the back of the truck is, at least, washed out. only the impossible stains that match jayce's new scars remain.
he can understand the tender strain around his eyes. it speaks volumes. ]
[Serph strides over to lean against the truck, pulling his wings over his sides so they aren't crushed under his own weight before he folds his arms.]
Yes. She's the only one without.
[Serph pauses, turning his gaze up to the sky. Not so long ago, he had never seen anything besides a dark, overcast sky and endless rain. Now, there is a blue sky. And yet no paradise in sight.]
But when she sang, her prayer would soothe our demons. When we were first infected by the Atma virus, we didn't know the nature of our demons. She saved my tribe from turning on each other when they lost control. The other tribes were not so lucky.
[ jayce sighs quietly through the nose as a force of habit, a reaction to an emotion; it's not so much the woman's actions, it's the way serph talks about her that makes his slowly beating heart feel a squeeze. it reminds jayce of viktor, then consequently his torn feelings for mel. not that he was uncertain of what he felt today, just . . . the sense of betrayal he'd gotten, of those feelings in the past. the creeping beneath his skin that for someone he so deeply cared for in the same melting way seemed to have used him. them. while his soul yearned for its other dying half right under his nose. fear clouded so much of his judgement, then.
part of him still wants to speak to her, one day. set things straight. put a tranquil stone on top of it and drift away on better terms. part of him does not; who knows what sharp anger would bubble through before his clarity would. ]
[Serph lets out a long breath, a sigh not unlike Jayce's own. Yes, she is. A girl with black hair -- unheard of, in a sea of people with hair in every colour under the cloudy sky -- who didn't know how to fight and spoke of things they had never seen or heard of. His conversations with her made him feel... like there was more to living than fighting.
But the mysteries that lay with her... he wishes he had been given time to talk when they reunited so briefly. To try and understand what it was that happened five years ago, to try and unravel the tangled thread of their unremembered past. Unfortunately, that choice was not in his hands.]
We were told she is our creator.
[Something that would have upset the balance of their perception of her perhaps, if they had known. But somehow, he suspects that quality wouldn't have mattered to him. Doesn't matter to him.]
[ he can share this sort of comradery. jayce reaches over to give the celestial's shoulder curve a squeeze, pat, before falling off to his own lap. jayce's hand is freezing. the little blood that pools in him isn't warm with a heartbeat that's barely there to generate the heat. ]
Maybe that's all you need of her.
[ of her, at least. jayce at least knows that it's what he would've liked, deep down. everyone makes mistakes— he'd like to think that not everything between them had just been a cover up. ]
Well, it's been nice sharing this quiet moment with Jayce. But they both have things to do, though he does make a note to check in on Jayce again some time in the future; the cessation of hunger and his oddly chilly touch are strange. Is it normal for what he is becoming? Hard to say without more data.
With a nod, Serph shifts so he's no longer leaning against Jayce's truck and makes ready to be on his way.]
[ that leaves him to finish whatever it was that was still left to do in the truck— but there's not much. he's not going to kill himself over rubbing the metal spotless when it's at least free of the bloodbath on the cargo bed. it was a good visit.
jayce reminds himself to do the same for the man, at some point. just to say hello. he was a friend that much deserved it. ]
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Completely unperturbed, Serph steps forward with the tiniest smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.]
Welcome back.
[He holds out the sheaf of papers in his hands: Jayce's own notes.]
You'll need these.
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jayce wipes his hand off on a face towel taken from one of the bathrooms, and stops in his lumbering tracks when handed the notes. he doesn't know what to do with those, anymore. there is no dire need to leave now that his home is where viktor is—
after a moment of hesitation and thought in front of serph, jayce quietly takes them back. ]
Thank you, [ maybe he'll need them for the others. and something to do. ] guess I'll have more time, after all.
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Without the papers in hand -- he'd made his own copies of the notes -- Serph folds his arms, shaking out one pair of his wings before he asks-]
Are you still hungry?
[Or has that gone, too?]
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[ he's had an entire factory reset after losing his heart and blood. jayce has a keen eye on any different symptoms, as per viktor's concern as much as his own. they're both scientists. observation is everything.
something dawns on jayce, though. a reminder, a memory, that takes a few moments to kickstart a furrow in his brows and a few consistent blinks: ]
—Did you-?
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Serph tilts his head at the incomplete question. Did he... what? There could be many trains of thought Jayce could be referring to, so which one?]
Did I...?
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[ he'd feel awful if he did, but jayce feels slightly better about it if it isn't obvious. means the likelihood is minimal. maybe. ]
Hunt for a dead man, no less.
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Not for you.
[Serph folds his arms and tucks his wings in tighter.]
It's no trouble if the need arises. Though I hope it doesn't.
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No, that's . . . That's good.
[ he hopes so, too. jayce doesn't even need to say it, his eyes speak loudly. they especially give away to a touch of wandering melancholy. he wouldn't want that sort of hunger to return, but. jayce doesn't know until what point he could even eat anymore. he hasn't for hours. days. he hasn't felt the need, neither the pit. he hasn't tried out of fear. ]
I haven't eaten since the accident. I don't think . . . I could, if I tried.
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You've been saved from Convoy food.
[The porridge in Serph's opinion? Horrible. Is that really what people normally eat?
He can't help but note Jayce using 'accident' to refer to his death. Serph would not call knowing his impending doom and having his chest sliced open, his ribcage caved in, and his heart capsized an accident. A small part of his brain whispers to him disassociation, distancing of the self from traumatic events, using softer language to cushion the mind from crushing reality.
But he doesn't press. If that's what Jayce needs to do to keep his mind working in the present...
More seriously-]
Maybe your mark and its changes affect your hunger. Or lack of it. [His bottom pair of wings unfold only to wrap around his waist.] The changes here are stranger than I initially thought. If you need help with anything at all... contact me.
[His gaze on Jayce is steady.]
We need you if we're to make it to Nirvana.
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but . . . serph is right. jayce could not bear to look at himself in the mirror with a bare chest. he could not bring himself to curve his neck and look inside of himself another time. all of this, from his accelerated death to a desperate attempt to save him—
it was not meant to be. there was no intention for any of it to be this way. it was a casualty. it was an accident. nothing more, nothing less. it helps his sleep stay silent. it helps him forget, sometimes, when the bandages are snug around his torso, that there were no barriers past his rib cage.
now, being needed? jayce thanks him with a steady bow of his head, regardless. the bow melds into a single shake. ]
I wasn't of much help before.
[ he was ill and deteriorating through most of it. he blasted a drifter he's pretty sure he sees around from time to time, and all they do is exchange these weird— glares. jayce doesn't know where to start with that (it should be an apology, but so much has happened he's barely had the mind for it). his mark was another story entirely though, and perhaps? it may be eating at him. ]
I don't even know where these changes start, and my . . . [ he gestures, ] condition begins.
[ it all looks the same. fated, even. ]
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And it so happens that Serph is sleeping with (not like that) said blasted drifter Jayce is exchanging weird glares with.Hm. There might be a lot that's new and strange to him -- Akechi's radio post reminds him of how limited his knowledge is. Jack has lived for forty times his own life -- but nevertheless he still asks Jayce-]
Can you tell me more about your condition?
[Knowing more about it would useful. And sometimes simply having another person to voice thoughts to can help, whether it's making sense of new knowledge or figuring out new ideas to explore. ...One of many things he misses about not having Gale around.]
cw body horror? there's rocks in his arm
This, [ he holds his wrist up, exposing the blue-tinted rune digging deep into skin and rooted, permanently, into the viens wildly colored up his arm, neck, face, eye— his entire left side. ] was supposed to kill me, eventually. Not as fast as it did, but, [ fingers splayed, he bobs his hand up and down, ] I have a theory the process was— accelerated, [ funny that it's called the acceleration rune and did just that. irrelevant to this, ] by the mark on my body, that I have reason to believe belongs to the Domain of the Undead.
[ he recites it, from memory: ]
The force of death, deterioration, and demise of all things, as well as rebirth and even breaking such patterns.
[ he shakes his head a bit, but only in disbelief. ]
I feel intricately . . . Bound, to this.
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He remembers that message well; he had first seen it from Blake. In conjunction with Jayce's skull for a mark... he could see it. While Jayce's death, deterioration, and demise had been accelerated-]
Your rebirth was made possible by a third force. Your partner.
[A force that was neither that of this world nor the object in Jayce's wrist, but a person with a grim determination to not accept death as the end.]
Let's not find out if you would have been reborn without him.
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he is filled with a shimmering glaze that shines right though his eyes. ]
I wouldn't want to. He gave me, [ his heart, his literal heart, he gave his all, he gave . . . well, jayce could only whisp a word out breathlessly, his fingers scraping at the bind of bandages underneath his shirt. ] everything.
[ since day one. starting with the gem on his wrist, that jayce rubs with his thumb, now— a circular, calming motion that he's done one too many times with an absent mind. he doesn't blame this killing him. he'd accepted that the moment he said take me back. i won't fail. i swear it. ]
He's my promise. After we got caught in the Moonwarp, I thought I lost him.
[ and that's why, for a moment, however brief— he'd gotten worse and given up. right in front of serph, so . . .
serph saw jayce in depth. at the end of his line and the start of his new one. knows he had a promise to keep, and watched him desist. he feels like he owes at least some reason for change of heart. very literally. ]
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Serph dips his head in a nod.]
I understand. There's someone just as important to me.
[He won't fault Jayce for giving up in that moment. Serph had seen how grief had shaken the hearts of even his most stoic of comrades. There is no dishonour in losing faith when all seems lost.]
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[ he does recall another thing that serph quite desperately wanted, and then adds, as he pieces them: ]
Or is that what Nirvana is for?
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Nirvana is for all who want it.
[As the fighting was drawing to a close, there were some who expressed doubt or disinterest in going. As long as they didn't defy him he'd let them be. And now they are gone, like all the others.]
It's safer for Sera to be with the rest of my tribe.
[As much as it feels like a part of him has been missing since their separation, he doesn't wish this place upon her even if there are trees and a blue sky.
His expression softens a little, mostly around the eyes.]
She's not like us.
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he can understand the tender strain around his eyes. it speaks volumes. ]
Does it have to do with your demon?
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Yes. She's the only one without.
[Serph pauses, turning his gaze up to the sky. Not so long ago, he had never seen anything besides a dark, overcast sky and endless rain. Now, there is a blue sky. And yet no paradise in sight.]
But when she sang, her prayer would soothe our demons. When we were first infected by the Atma virus, we didn't know the nature of our demons. She saved my tribe from turning on each other when they lost control. The other tribes were not so lucky.
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part of him still wants to speak to her, one day. set things straight. put a tranquil stone on top of it and drift away on better terms. part of him does not; who knows what sharp anger would bubble through before his clarity would. ]
She sounds extraordinary.
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But the mysteries that lay with her... he wishes he had been given time to talk when they reunited so briefly. To try and understand what it was that happened five years ago, to try and unravel the tangled thread of their unremembered past. Unfortunately, that choice was not in his hands.]
We were told she is our creator.
[Something that would have upset the balance of their perception of her perhaps, if they had known. But somehow, he suspects that quality wouldn't have mattered to him. Doesn't matter to him.]
But to us, she is our comrade.
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Maybe that's all you need of her.
[ of her, at least. jayce at least knows that it's what he would've liked, deep down. everyone makes mistakes— he'd like to think that not everything between them had just been a cover up. ]
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Well, it's been nice sharing this quiet moment with Jayce. But they both have things to do, though he does make a note to check in on Jayce again some time in the future; the cessation of hunger and his oddly chilly touch are strange. Is it normal for what he is becoming? Hard to say without more data.
With a nod, Serph shifts so he's no longer leaning against Jayce's truck and makes ready to be on his way.]
Look after yourself, Jayce.
[He'll see you around, buddy.]
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[ that leaves him to finish whatever it was that was still left to do in the truck— but there's not much. he's not going to kill himself over rubbing the metal spotless when it's at least free of the bloodbath on the cargo bed. it was a good visit.
jayce reminds himself to do the same for the man, at some point. just to say hello. he was a friend that much deserved it. ]