heartofthestar | Labyrinthium Inbox

[ OH. Unintended bonus, perhaps: Argos might like the farm too! Do familiar dogs need to run the way real ones do? Probably not. Maruki doesn't know animals, much less familiars. But it's a thought that crosses his mind as he stands, book dog-eared and left aside, and makes his way over to meet them halfway.

He's been deliberately slow introducing Venat to the finer points of partnering with someone (get bent, BB) – and happily so, at that. It's more enjoyable this way, easing into even the simplest shows of affection that no one would think twice about back in his true reality. It lends a significant weight to every act, and for an endlessly sentimental guy, that's only ever a boon.

Still, though, there is always this: Greeting Venat with arms outstretched to wrap her up in an embrace, hugging her close before separating just enough to be able to look her in the eye, smiling like every star in the sky. ]

Thank you for joining me. It's a nice place, isn't it?

[ To say the least. Eren's wish had been for a simple farm; what he got is a little absurd, including the massive farmhouse some distance behind them.

Maruki unwraps one arm from around her to extend a hand to Argos as well, never one to leave him out even as he's unwilling to let go so quickly. ]

[This gesture, the warm and casual hug, the emotions -- they're all very foreign, as he well knows, and in some respects uncomfortable and even scary. Yet in the same moment, they hold warmth and comfort and delight. So Venat ignores all her negative feelings, or rather challenges them quite directly, by returning the hug without hesitation. The only barriers between them are ones she has constructed, and thus, ones she must dismantle.]

[Argos noses on up to give Maruki's hand a sniff and a quick lick. Between the man doing a decent job at making Venat happy and proving he's no weakling during the battle against the Green Knight, the dog has fully accepted Maruki as worth being around at this point.]

No doubt I'll agree once I actually view it. I fear you've taken up my attention entirely.

[ And yet, for as foreign as he knows it all is for Venat, she's not bad at this at all. (Then again, has she ever truly been bad at anything in her long life? Somehow, he doubts it.) A faint flush rises in his cheeks at that, but he doesn't fluster or try to hide it. ]

Well, loath as I am to leave that spotlight...

[ And he does linger there for a few moments longer, merely smiling at her, bringing a hand up to stroke a few loose strands of hair back. It's a powerful affection he feels, constantly squeezing his ribcage; these small outlets for it matter.

But then he swings around to stand by Venat's side instead, an arm still wrapped around her waist, the other gesturing expansively to the fields, the farmhouse, the barn, that tree off in the distance that's perfect for napping beneath. It's a bucolic, beautiful place, and Maruki has to laugh a little. ]

You'd think that cottages and castles would be the most jarring sights for a city guy like me to contend with, but no. A farm is somehow much stranger. Still, I'm becoming fond of it.

Edited 2024-08-26 19:47 (UTC)

Is that not because cottages and castles are fantastical to you, whereas a farm is something quite real and relevant? Rather than viewing something you know you could never see, you are viewing something you instead would never see.

[That is her own estimation, in any case. She might herself feel this way about romance in the midst of all this madness -- a surprisingly real thing, and so much stranger for all that.]

Praytell, what grows here?

[She leaves one arm around him in turn, mimicking his gesture and finding warmth in it. The strength of a person standing beside her is welcome in its own unusual way, and rather than finding herself adrift in unfamiliarity, she instead wonders what comes next.]

[ Maruki hums his assent at her observation; as ever, Venat is right on the money.

At her question, though, he has to laugh and give a self-conscious scratch to the stubble along his jaw. ]

Eh, good question...

[ It cannot be overstated just how much he is a useless freeloader here. He might have learned to enjoy hiking and camping, but outdoor manual labor? Never. He does no work on this farm, and thank god for it. ]

They have a vegetable garden, I know that. And there are a fair few animals – chickens, Eren's horse, and this... dragon thing...

[ A squint, a furrowed brow. What the hell is Patrasche? He may never know. ]

Aside from that, though, I think that Eren mostly wanted the land to have the privacy away from the rest of Somnius. Not for any real practical purpose. I can't say I'm not grateful for it.

[ An affectionate little squeeze around her waist, then, as he gestures over to where he'd been relaxing by the pond, in case she'd like to join. ]

I shall save my inquiries for Eren, then, and resolve only to enjoy the time here without badgering you regarding it.

[Taking his meaning, Venat disengages enough to trade arms about the waist for handholding -- being unfamiliar with the idea of walking while half-embracing.]

Are you, then, simply striving to enjoy the privacy? Myself excepted, of course.

[ It truly takes so very little to make Maruki happy. Venat takes his hand unprompted and his heart soars, fingers tightening around hers as they make their way back over to the pond. ]

Well, in a way, yes. I rarely get time to myself anymore, so being able to unwind here away from everything has been helpful.

[ He inclines his head toward her, smiling like he has a secret. ]

On the other hand, I find time with you just as restorative as time alone – more restorative, actually. So you're hardly the exception that you might think you are.

[ This is, in fact, exactly what the doctor ordered... If there were another doctor in Somnius who could take stock of his stresses and prescribe simple treatments such as quiet time with a dear companion in a peaceful setting. Physician, heal thyself, etc. ]

[Her smile brightens, and for the moment, she says nothing. In her head, she pictures the boundaries and burdens she faces as a wall, built brick-by-brick over a long lifetime, and once that picture is in place, she begins removing bricks.]

[When one's magic can create miracles with proper visualization, it has no small amount of power.]

Then, dare I ask how you would care to spend this time, having coaxed me out here to take advantage of the privacy?

[Also: teasing. A very powerful force as well.]

[ Very well-received teasing, at that. Maruki's smile only widens, heat crawling up the back of his neck. Pleasant shyness, no unbearable fluster here. Not yet, anyway – it's difficult, now, with how comfortable he is around Venat, but certainly not impossible.

But as ever, he's almost irritatingly earnest. ]

I wasn't lying when I said this was meant as an opportunity to comfort you as much as it is to woo you. I want to hear about how you're feeling, Venat. I always do.

[ Guilt and grief are old bedfellows of his too, after all. Their circumstances couldn't be more different, but he's keenly aware of how difficult it must be with someone from her past like Lahabrea now present. ]

And then, if I can take your mind off of it afterwards, all the better.

[ Local man might actually give his Ancient girlfriend what is probably her first kiss? MAYBE?? Time will tell. ]

If I hesitate to speak of it, it is not because I am trying to keep information from you, but rather, that words fail me.

[She knows of what he speaks, and the reminder of -- all of it, makes her shake her head as she disengages, only so that she might take a seat by the pond with him.]

How does one reconcile the appearance of a respected former colleague with the knowledge of all that shall happen, and all that shall be done to and by him? Perhaps I should begin by explaining that only three of my people survived the Sundering unbroken, excluding of course me, and all three of them because my absolute enemies across the ages.

[ There, at the edge of the water, Maruki settles close next to her and rests a hand on her knee, fingers idly drawing out little patterns as he listens. He keeps waiting for his constant need to express his affection in these small ways to grate on her, but it's not something he's ever been able to help. ]

I have my own thoughts on the matter, unsurprisingly, but I want to hear you tell it first... Who aside from Lahabrea survived?

[Venat is not one to ever be 'grated' on, though she of course can be annoyed, angry, or upset as a situation merits. This merits none of these, and even if it did, she worries not at all that they can reconcile it. He would listen to a calm request for a moment's space, would he not?]

[But conversely, this casual and downright shocking intimacy proves more welcome each time.]

Emet-Selch, who was the keeper of the Underworld, and Elidibus, the heart of the primal Zodiark. I could not have found more dangerous and implacable foes.

You certainly do know how to pick them...

[ The tiniest bit of levity. He inclines his head, then, thoughtful. ]

But the Lahabrea present here predates all of that, it sounds like. Disparate timelines like that can cause many issues. Do you think...

[ A beat of hesitation. Maruki has run across this several times in those he counsels, formally or informally. Secrets kept and futures told. There's surely no right way to go about it. ]

Is he the sort of person who will want to know what his future holds?

Only the rarest of men would not. Whether or not that desire shall drive him further than curiosity, I cannot say. [Venat lowers her head slightly, breathes a sigh.] I told him one thing I felt necessary, given his last memories of our world and time, for I suspect the question of Zodiark's success would plague him had he no answer. The rest I declined, but I have told so many others candidly and without deception that I cannot think he will avoid discovering the full tale overlong, will he or no.

[She cannot undo the past, nor would she if given the chance, but this is quite the troublesome outcome. But, after that somber moment, Venat perks up again slightly.]

However, I have little fear of long-term possible repercussions. He cannot change what has happened, by virtue of my presence here. Should he be returned with full memory of all he could learn, he could cleave the timeline, but that would not undo all that has come to pass in this one. I do not believe him to at this point be so ruled by emotion that he would attack me here nonetheless, but even should he do so after regaining his full strength, I am superior to him in that respect.

[This is not braggadocio on her part. The Seat of Lahabrea is that of creation principles; in experience with actual battle and strife, it cannot compete with the Seat of Azem, nor its former holder.]

[ Consider Maruki among the rarest of men, then.

(And he will learn his future anyway! Thanks, altered memories event ♥)

When Venat visibly perks up again, he has to bite the inside of one cheek to keep from grinning like a fool. She is irrepressible, always. And absolutely blunt in her honest evaluations of any situation. ]

I don't doubt you are! Let's hope it doesn't come to that, even so.

[ Maruki reaches out to stroke her hair back from her temple, impossibly fond as ever. ]

I'm curious, though– knowing what you do about the vagaries of time, do you believe that that's possible? Someone returning to their true reality, retaining what they've learned here, and altering events accordingly.

[ ASKING FOR A FRIEND. ]

[Venat leans into the touch slightly, though perhaps not consciously; she has already lit up that little bit over having a story to tell.]

During a serious clash between the Garlean Empire and the Eorzean Alliance, the former unleashed a terrible poison known as Black Rose. Initially intended to only kill the Alliance's members and quash their resistance, it fed off light-aspected aether, which was at a zenith for somewhat-related reasons. The poison multiplied and spread, slaughtering not only Eorzeans but toppling the Empire as well, and coming as close to erasing civilization as is possible without doing so fully.

[She relates this story calmly and without excess emotion, as if she were explaining what she had for dinner the night before.]

A man of great genius sought to undo this calamity through the only means he could conceive of: sending a person through time and space to prevent Black Rose from emerging, or at the very least, from deriving such uncontained power through the light. He and his team combined the spatial manipulation of the extraterrestrial Omega and the temporal manipulation of the great primal Alexander to send a sole inhabitant of the Crystal Tower, an Allagan creation that contained elements of both, to the past.

I speak often of timelines splitting, and that event is why. Their actions split their timeline, as they knew it would. Their own cursed existence would not end, but by their choices, they allowed a new and greater timeline to calve off. That is the one I hail from. And that story contains your answer; to change the past so dramatically is not to change the future that has been set, but to create a new one alongside the old.

[ As with any time Venat tells a story, Maruki listens with rapt interest – and no small amount of mental note taking. There are always unfamiliar names and concepts to commit to memory. He truly never tires of it.

It's a perfect compromise between his own belief and the one that most others hold. The future cannot be altered, but split. It seems iron-clad, really; who could dispute that? ]

It makes perfect sense to me. Reality is an entirely malleable thing. There are surely multiple timelines for any given "world," and that's lowballing it.

[ Infinite, would be his theory, but perhaps a fanciful one. ]

Who knows? The same could very well be true of this reality too.

In truth, I can foresee no other alternatives. Either the timeline changes so little it conforms without trouble, or it splits. Else how else could the past that was, the past that becomes, the future that was, and the future that becomes all exist, when each is necessary for the scenario to occur?

[Venat has experience with this all, of course, but worth mentioning also is that she immediately identified a time-traveler absent any knowledge that such an act was possible. When she says that nothing felt impossible to her any more, she is not speaking metaphorically nor hyperbolically.]

I am aware of numerous smaller-scale ones that occurred for unclear reasons over the course of my time as Hydaelyn. Strangely, they all seemed diverge primarily on the identity of the Warrior of Light.

[ A memory resurfaces easily, immediately. Maruki blinks rapidly as it does, then sharpens his focus, peering at her curiously. ]

Now that you mention it... I spoke with Lehna about something similar while she was here. The existence of versions of that role, different across realities though the same at their core...

[ He hadn't gotten to dive deep enough into it with her, and his head still swims with all the possibility that it means within the collective unconscious, but–

Well, Maruki was a slightly different man back then. While his fascination is no less preoccupied with what all their existences in Somnius mean for that driving collective force that he knows best of all, it exists off to the side when he's around the people he cares about most. ]

Ah, how are you faring in her absence...?

[Venat's smile holds no sadness or qualms; it is naught more than radiance.]

It is in Azem's nature to appear when needed, then vanish off to the next adventure or crisis. And given her nature, it may be for the best in any case. She needs stability more than she knows, and this land has precious little to offer her.

[Speaking of which, she leans in a little closer to him, getting that much more comfortable. Though it changes nothing, Venat knows that whim or fate or whatever force brought them here could separate them easily and without warning. That is not a call to avoid such an attachment, though; such separations are inevitable. She ought to be dead and nonexistent; he is human, his lifespan measured in vanishing fractions of the time she has spent alive. Their parting will come, in one form or another. One cannot live in fear of that; instead, one must appreciate what they have when they have it.]

[ Their thoughts follow similar paths, as ever. The volatile nature of this reality has not been lost on Maruki since the day he arrived. Every day he wakes up here again is unexpected. Everyone will leave, if not by the whims of their captor then when they finally find a way to break free themselves.

His goal is to return. It always has been, always will be. But the time spent here until then is nothing short of precious. People he would never otherwise meet, experiences he would never otherwise have. He won't waste it. And he certainly won't ever pull away from those he's already let into his heart.

Venat leans in closer, and Maruki makes up any scanty remaining distance, an arm wrapping around her back to pull her in tight against his side. That radiant smile is met with his own warm one, and he bows his head against hers as he asks: ]

Can I share something with you? It might sound fanciful or foolish, but it's backed by every bit of research that I know to be true.

[Venat lifts her free hand to her mouth. As ever, the gesture is pointless, hiding neither her smile nor her laughter.]

Wherefore comes the idea that you need ask? If you can imagine me ever answering that question in the negative, you've a more powerful imagination than anyone I have ever met by leaps and bounds.

[Silly, silly man. In fact, his question raises several of its own, but for once, Venat chooses to deal with none of them. They are just winding trails that likely lead nowhere; until she finds one wide enough worth following, far better to stay put where she is. It's quite pleasant here, as it happens.]

[ Maruki laughs in return, soft and self-effacing. ]

It's rhetorical! I know you'll say yes, I just like asking...

[ And he likes hearing the affirmation, too. It's not that he needs the reassurance, really. He never hesitates to share a single thought on his mind with Venat, a byproduct of the comfort that sprang up so easily between them, so early on. It simply feels good to know, and to hear, again and again, that she is listening, that they both are. ]

For as different as this reality is to my own, and to those that everyone else comes from, the collective unconscious underpins them all. It may go by different names and have slightly different functions depending on the reality in question... the Paths, the aetherial sea... but I feel confident saying that in the grand scheme, they all draw from the same source.

[ He has never found more comfort in a concept than the collective unconscious; has never desired more power over something, either. In time, he'll learn what it would mean for him, and while it may significantly abate that desire, it will only strengthen his belief in these statements. ]

So long as the collective unconscious exists, memory persists within it. Beyond death and beyond realities. So, in that way...

[ A beat, a breath. A promise so serious to him that it's very nearly an oath. ]

I won't ever forget you.

[ It's an impossibly heavy statement, for reasons he's yet to reveal to Venat. The weight is there, present in the fierce conviction behind each word. ]

There's an end to all things, but not that.

[...oh dear.]

[She hasn't the heart, nor the desire, to tell him that studies of the aetherial sea have proven that once a soul is submerged within it, the sea slowly but inexorably washes clean all the memories that come with it, until at last the soul is pure and ready to return to the world once more.]

[But reality has little part in romance, even for practical people.]

I cannot promise you the same, knowing what I do about the ultimate fate of my soul. [She reaches across herself, then, to place a hand gently on his cheek. If before she had taken memory for granted, his words have given her cause to mend that error. In that moment, then, she locks gazes with him, and burns his eyes into her mind and her soul, so deeply that they will last until it inevitably disperses.]

But I will remember you for as long as there is a me to do so. And even once that ends, we will have made the world a better place even if through no other way than what we have shared, and will share. That effect will ripple on, and though those ripples may drift far from the shore whence they started, they will touch and shift all the more for doing so. In that respect, you and I and we will never be forgotten, until the very last moment, where time itself no longer has meaning.

[ Every word radiates through him. Like a clear note struck on a bell in an empty room. Like the wings of a dove in flight. Like crystalline-bright light, splintered into kaleidoscopic fractions dancing in the sun. Like a wish.

Maruki is a man who puts an exceptional amount of weight on words. Simple kindnesses spoken in times of need, genuine praise for work well done, reassurance when he forgets what he already knows to be true, affirmation that someone feels the same as he does. Talk isn't cheap, not to him. And words aren't only words, pretty and romantic but ultimately meaningless. They are significant, tremendously so; sacred.

Venat will die. He isn't naive. He has known this since the very day they met in dreams. She will die beyond death, the very essence of her soul rendered discorporate.

Yet memory persists. If not in the way that he knows, then in the echoes of all reality.

It's no small thing. It's the most phenomenal thing of all.

They are the most phenomenal thing of all, he thinks. A force to be reckoned with that will be felt throughout time, simply because they've allowed themselves to come together.

Maruki is entirely silent as her words settle over him like powder-fine snow. Venat's eyes – brilliant, ethereal, glowing with all her conviction and all her radiant joy – locked inexorably on his, her touch lingering on his face, her heart bared just as much as his.

All at once, his face splits into a smile like he's not felt in long years. A luminous thing that glows from within. It aches, and if he has learned anything in Somnius, anything by being with her, it is that it's not such a bad thing, to ache. ]

I'm so grateful your soul made this detour before its ultimate fate. More grateful than ever.

[ He mirrors her motion, cups her face in one warm palm, thumb skating over her cheekbone for a moment before he draws her in closer. The motion is slow, tender, almost impossibly so. He's well aware how unexpected all of this is to Venat; it's why he's waited months for this moment: To meet her halfway, to breathe her in, to press his lips gently to hers, like a promise. It's a soft kiss, but Maruki is nothing but steady, assured. He'll anchor her through something entirely new. It's the very least he can do. ]

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FRANKLY THIS THREAD COULD GO FOREVER IN MY HEART but we can wrap on yr reply if you want :3ccc

It WILL go on forever in our hearts!