BACK TO YOU / reminiscing

[COSMIIX]

[glow=white,1,400]BUT IT'S NOT ENOUGH, IT WON'T BE ENOUGH TO SAVE YOU ! — ｡+ﾟ.[/glow]

It was a mess.

He supposed that it was a harsh reflection on his own life, the thought made a snort escape him, the canine moved around in the room where he had created or well tried to before he'd get burnt paws. Stark had a vision, a futuristic one, though it did not prove easy seeing as he had no opposable thumbs to get a grip on the shit he would work on. In turn, he became a collector (a packrat in the eyes of others) and hoarded several pieces of scrap metal, nuts, and bolts. Eventually, he'd be able to make something out of it all one day was his initial thought. Yet, he had left to go practice on those powers of his and well, it hadn't turned out well for him. He had kept trying to perfect the technique over and over again, sometimes he would succeed with flying colors, getting the result he wanted. But with each success of his, he hadn't realized that it was effecting him in a very negative way. It was just slightly then, there was no issue. No worries. Until, he decided that he wanted to go up against something to truly test his defensive abilities that had been his biggest mistake. Oh, how he had been foolish. He hadn't been stupid enough to go up against a bear but, a single wolf that had attacked him decided to call for help. . . A whole pack of wolves against a single canine, well, he hadn't struck out lucky. They had nearly killed him. Back when he had been younger, he had been attacked by a group of wolves too except it hadn't been a large group like the one he had faced recently.

A numb, cracked pawpad would run across the bandages that were wrapped around his body. He had to run from them after getting a few of them off him, he had managed to find a small cave to briefly call his own. It took him a while to realize that the sharper earth particles had penetrated into his skin, what he didn't realize that it was inflicting damage onto his immune system. It could have became severe if he wasn't careful enough. The memory made the canine let put a soft 'tsk' sound, his eyes still wandering across his room in wonder. He walked a little further into the room brushing off the dust from a picture book he had kept after all those years, he would open it up slowly with a shaky paw. His throat felt dry as he went through the first few pages, the first few ones being pictures of puppies. . . Specifically his children. A few more pages were flipped and he felt choked up staring at the images. He couldn't. His insides aches with such an immense pain, it made his body shake and shudder. His eyes began to sting a bit as a few tears dripped onto the pictures safely tucked away behind plastic.

Plip. Plop. Plip.

Stark wiped the tears away from his own eyes, he hadn't known why he had ruined something so beautiful. He had something going on. Yet, his young self had been rash and afraid of the mere thought of marriage even now it made the older canine feel squeamish. He bit his bottom lip drawing only a bit of blood, he drew a soft breath only to try and murmur the name of his to be though it never escaped his mouth. His tongue and mind forbid him. He tried again only for a helpless breath to escape him, he closed the book only to shove it away with a sudden anger pulsating through him. He had set up his own destiny with his decisions, now, all he could do was live with what he had or got in the world. There wasn't any point in crying over something lost to him. It wasn't like he could turn back time and make amends to his mistakes. He had been stupid and naive though leadership had molded him into something more. . . He wasn't so certain of what exactly but he was different. His mind shifting gears like a machine, his movements almost robotic, but his words still held some form of sentience. His words were often sarcastic or simply just the words of an idiot running on whatever his mind buzzed, it didn't matter to him but to others it would. Stark spoke his mind back when he was smaller, he hadn't much of the opinion.

Now it was different. Very so.

He began to tidy up his little workshop as he'd like to call it, moving bolts and nuts into small jars that he placed onto shelves. The book he had been going through, he removed some of the pictures fitting a few into some frames and placing them onto his once vacant walls. Stark let out a soft breath before breaking into a brief coughing fit, he cleared his throat afterwards staring at that one picture of him and his ex-fiance, a deep frown etched onto his maw. He couldn't speak her name without feeling guilt, thinking her name didn't help in this endeavor either. He decided against hanging a picture of her on his workshops walls. He knew he would be restless, toss and turn, and suffer if she was there staring at him. He put away the book only to glance around at his cleaner homespace.

One day, he'd be cleaned up too. He would've recovered. He wouldn't be a mess. [glow=COLOR,1,400]♛[/glow]

[nemhain.]

A mess. It wouldn't be a total wrong assumption, to call Nemhain her own sort of mess. A mess made up of two different spirits, of two different beings, of two different worlds. One, the stubborn magna that currently led Elysium, the one who was trying her best just to make it while also making sure that everyone around her was safe. The one that couldn't afford to keep any secrets, because secrets only led to more lies and more hurt and less people to talk to. Then there was the other side. Nemhain, as she was known. A mess made up not only of the bits of personality and motivations of the aforementioned magna, but also a mess of her own design. All false confidence and sharp edges and overly polite word choices. A sort of disinterested disconnect from the world that was only broken occasionally, usually when something amused her or warmed her heart. She was a disaster not because she felt things, or because she existed in her own messy, ridiculous way. No, she was a disaster because she was never even meant to be like this. She was never supposed to be lingering in the shadows for so long, an unwilling participant watching scenes pass before her eyes and never being able to do anything. She was never supposed to develop her own personality, full of false bravado and motivations and all the messy gaps in being human that a persona was never supposed to have. She was never supposed to be the one that Rin was looking up to, going to desperately for advice and for guidance. She was just supposed to be the minion. The helper. The persona. But now, instead, she was this. This messy amalgamation who didn't truly know what she was or who she was, and who bit her tongue more often than she spoke, cramming her emotions down so deep that not even the one who was irreversibly connected to her could access them.

She could relate to Stark, even if she knew very little of him. She knew what it was like to want to push yourself. To continue searching, and become so restless for the next step in your life that you just ended up fucking up everything in the process. She had spent sp many days and so many nights stalking back and forth in the shadows, her numbness melting away and giving way to ambition, and desperation. Stark might have lost himself in his inventions and his tests, but Nemhain had lost herself in her endless plans. She didn't even know why she had ever bothered making them, really. At first it had been like a game. A few silly thoughts to pass the time, like she would ever truly be able to be her own person. Like she would ever actually emerge from Rin's shadow. For the longest time all she had wanted to do was help Rin, but as things had continued on and on, Nem had wanted to do nothing more but help herself. It was selfish, and she knew it would do nothing but hurt. Not only those around her, but herself as well. What purpose was there to a persona with her own ambitions? What was the point, when she wouldn't be giving her all for Rin, but would instead be trying to get to the next goalpost of her own life? Rin would hate her. Everyone would hate her. Hell, all it would end with would be her suffering, and her fading away. She would lose everything, because she didn't deserve to exist if she wasn't doing what she had been intended to do. She would lose everything, just as Stark had already lost so much.

If Nem didn't already know quite well that she was attached to Rin, it even would've been possible for her to feel an odd kinship with the other. Sure, perhaps she had never envisioned the same life as he, what with the fiance and the happy faces of children all around, but both of them had dreams. Both of them had things to lose, things that had already been lost. It was like Nemhain could see her future if she did what she wanted. Like she was looking down the barrel of a gun, and all she wanted to do was have someone pull the trigger so at least then it could finally be over. She was lucky enough that if that happened, she would never have to face the consequences. She would fail, and she would fade away, forgotten to this world, as well as all other worlds too. Even if she would never get the life that she most desired, at least she wouldn't have to constantly stare her own failure in the face every day. Stark, though? Stark couldn't just fade away, and perhaps that was the saddest part of this whole thing. The thought of changing, or growing, or moving on even after doing what you believed to be the worst mistake of your life? The thought hadn't even occurred to Nemhain. She had figured that if she finally crossed that line, and finally put a talon out of place, that would be it. That would be the end, and there was nothing beyond that. While Nem saw nothing in Stark but disappointment and bleakness, thay wasn't really what he was, was he? He had the opportunity to change. He had the opportunity to pluck himself off the ground, dust himself off, and move forward, even with his past mistakes. Such a thought seemed utterly insane to Nem. Perhaps it was insane. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad, acting just a little bit insane. If it meant that she could actually get freedom.

Nem wasn't sure why she was hit with such a wave of emotion when she landed in front of Stark's workshop, but she found that she didn't really care, either. There was just... an air. An air of suffocation, like someone was just waking up from what seemed like an endless sleep, just to shake off the first signs of morning breath. She breathed it in, if only because it reminded her of her own troubles. It made her feel less alone, because somehow she felt so alone so very often, even thought she was directly connected to someone who was supposed to make it so that she couldn't possibly feel alone. She allowed the emotions to sink in for only a moment, bleeding into her every feather and infecting her mind, letting it wander for the briefest of seconds. And then she shut herself away again, closing her mind and her heart and shoving all those emotions downward, deep inside where not even Rin could hope to find them. Once she had a hold of herself, she continued her journey forward, finding herself glancing in at Stark's new cleaned up little space. She let her eyes drag slowly over every corner, processing every little detail and trying to make connections with what she knew of Stark, even if her only info on him was secondhand. Eventually she spoke, figuring it was rude to just stand there and stare, "...Hello. My name is Nemhain. I've been living here for a little while... you're Stark, right? I know of you, from Rin." Nem did not know the whole story of Stark Ferro, or what in his life had led him to this point, but for some reason she felt like she should know him. Like he should know her.

[Warringkingdoms]

  [font=trebuchet ms]As Rin passed by, she noticed the door to Stark's house ajar, and Stark and Nemhain standing inside. Come to think of it, she probably ought to check Stark's wounds to ensure they were healing properly. She figured he probably hadn't gone so far as to cauterize his own wounds, so he'd be easier to treat than Lemy, at least. With a small nod to herself, she entered through the doorway and glanced around.

  The odor of dust in the air stuck to the sides of her throat as she breathed it in, achingly familiar. Though the house was distinct in its layout, the sense of abandonment, long-lost memories... that much was the same. At least it was still left standing for Stark when he'd returned. Not everyone could count themselves so lucky.

  Twitching her ears, she turned her head to gaze at the wall, and the pictures framed upon it- her good sense speaking up too late to stop her from noticing the subjects framed within. Puppies, young, innocent, their resemblance to Stark plain to see. Family photos. Photos of those who were never forgotten, even as time passed and the world warped around them.

  Soft sunflower eyes stared back at her, scarred by time. Torn away. Stranded. Lost and crying-

  Rin clenched her jaw, her shoulders hunching. No. She shouldn't think about that, not when Nemhain was literally right there, not when she could feel everything. She couldn't put another creature through that, not even one that was supposedly a part of herself. Nemhain had insisted she would do this even if given the choice but why should Rin make that an excuse to make her suffer? There was no excuse to drag others down into her darkness the darkness that would slowly strangle her leaving little left but-

  "How many times, Mother?"

  "What were their names?" Rin asked out of the blue, her eyes glued to the floor, counting the grains in the wood. Lifting the loose end of her scarf with one paw, she quickly rubbed at the corners of her eyes until they were dry. If she got Stark talking, maybe she'd be too busy sympathizing with him to think about herself. Nemhain wouldn't have to deal with those runaway emotions, then. Maybe it'd do Stark some good to talk about it, too.

  ...but maybe she was going into territory she shouldn't have been. Maybe Stark didn't want to talk about it. "Only if you're okay talking about them, though," she clarified, lifting her head to glance back at him. "If not, I get it." She couldn't sacrifice one Elysite's mental stability for another Elysite's, no matter how much she owed it to Nemhain not to make her suffer.