eachdraidh | video; unseelie locked

... If this is about Yuri, I haven't been able to reach him, either. [And, well, she mentioned Yuri, so being Lightning she just goes for it.]

You too?

[On one hand it's reassuring to know that it's not just her. On the other, it increases her concern a bit.]

It's really strange. I hope he's okay.

[If he got into another fight...]

I'll ask Hiro if he's seen him. He might be the next best person to have a good idea.

[But if not him, then they really should get to worrying. Yuri takes care of himself well enough, but ...]

Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.

[Xion hadn't realized Hiro and Yuri talked to each other, but it's she's... relieved to hear.]

I saw him almost a couple weeks ago, right after the Shuck told us to help the banshees. He was fine then.

Where were you at then? [That may be a clue.]

We were both in Leathann. I'd just finished doing the deliveries I was asked to. [She hesitates.] And... other stuff happened, but I'll tell you later. [Whatever Hiro says about being careful about who she trusts, she thinks she can with Lightning. Just... not here.] It shouldn't have anything to do with this anyway. I'm not sure if he wanted to stay there much longer but... I don't remember if he said where he was going.

[She frowns. Rather a crucial oversight, in retrospect.]

He may have been headed back for the audience. [That she had missed herself. Oh, the Shuck's declaration made its way to her. Of course it did, but she had no desire to see the monarchs in the flesh.]

I'll keep an eye out for him. Let me know if you hear anything different.

Maybe....

[Given the shared mutual disdain the three of them had had for the monarchs, Xion isn't so sure. But still, it was possible. She hesitates.]

Let me know too.

[It's several hours later, after her conversation with Clarke, that Lightning gets another message from the locket. This time for her specifically.

Her voice is flat, dead.]

He's gone. Clarke said so. He... [She cuts herself off, trying to find the words she wanted. They don't come.] He's gone.

[There is a long stretch of silence on her end. Oh, she's definitely there. That much is certain.]

He was a good friend, Xion. And we can't just forget him. [Still, these words are spoken awkwardly. Lightning has lost a great deal in her life, but she had come to the end with all her friends.

Something tells her that it won't be the same here.]

[In some ways, talking to Lightning is easier. She doesn't have to explain nearly as much about who Yuri was or what he'd done for her. Lightning already knows. She was there.]

I won't. Never.

[She had so few memories now that the Heartless took them away from her, and her memories of Yuri were all the more precious now.]

He's not even home. He's- he's trapped, between our worlds. And there's nothing we can do.

[It's not fair it's not fair it's not fair.]

Trapped ... [Trapped. The hopelessness is there. That answers her curiosity: can she just go home, instead of waiting for the inevitable? Can she ensure that a new world is born? Or is that all hopeless? Now she knows. She doesn't speak as much to Xion, but it tells her of the significance of her role here.]

Right now, we can't. But I'm sure we'll find a way.

We have to.

[There's a certain amount of hopelessness weighing her own thoughts down. A part of her wants to ask how, petulant and self-defeating. But she doesn't really want to think it's hopeless. And just like that, something occurs to her. It's a half-desperate thing, and yet...]

Back home, we could use these special corridors go between worlds. I can't use them here but... maybe I can ask for them back.

[She may not like the monarchs, but she would be willing to go to them, for this.]

Even if I couldn't go home, maybe I could find him, at least.

[If he's trapped between worlds and she could somehow access that place...]

... To be brought into a space like that isn't safe. And it's even more difficult to leave.

[Though Lightning isn't certain that it's like Valhalla—in fact, it might be closer to the Historia Crux—she thinks it is likely that it's unsafe to go there.]

I think it wouldn't be bad to look, but I wouldn't trust the gods of this world to allow you to enter that space freely. [And if she doesn't enter it freely, it might mean that she's meant to be lost to this world, too.]

Let's consider that path, but others, too. [Lightning has lost friends before. She hadn't known Yuri as well as she knew Fang and Vanille, but that doesn't make him any less someone she wants to save.

But she doesn't want to lose Xion in the process.]

The Corridors aren't safe either, really. It's why we always have to wear our coats when we use them.

[The Coat, Lightning might remember, as the one that she was wearing on the night they had both arrived.

It's her kind of way of saying that she can handle it. Or at least she's not... totally a novice. Moving between worlds was a risky business, no matter where you were from, really.]

You think we could get trapped there, if we went there to look for him?

[It should be more of an "I" than a "we," most likely, and yet as looking for Yuri is something they're undertaking together, it feels... weird to refer to it singularly.]

I might be looking at it the wrong way, [she admits.] But if the monarchs need us to fight, wouldn't they just grant you that power and have you bring him back? And the rest of the people who've been lost, too.

Gods are powerful beings. [That's kind of the problem. And even if she's one herself ...] So we'd have to consider ourselves in comparison.

Hmmm...

[That does... sort of raise a good point.]

Clarke said that it's the monarchs from the other court that break the ties. Maybe that make them hard to find?

[Truthfully she doesn't quite understand all of what Lightning means, about comparing and considering themselves. All she can really think about is what she can do.]

We can still ask...

[There's an unspoken, hesitant, "right?" at the end of that. She may not trust the monarchs, but she's willing to do that. For her friends, she's willing to do that.]

Edited 2015-08-14 00:29 (UTC)

You can ask. It's worth a shot. ["You" and not "we." It's not that she doesn't want to go there, but she doesn't want to ask the monarchs for any favors. If she has to go find Yuri, she'll make her own way to do it.]

Xion- ( Clarke hesitates, if only because this is something that you never get used to in this place. ) I have a few alternative ways of communicating with people that don't use the lockets. I'll see if I can get in touch; you're looking for Yuri, right?

That would be great.

[Though... Yuri's never exactly had trouble with the lockets before that Xion knows about.]

And yeah, that's him. Do you know him?

[In case she needs to give a description, or something.]

Yeah. Yuri- ( she pauses. they only spoke a few times, but. ) -he's a friend.

Just give me a few minutes, okay?

( Clarke knows what this means, when people are unreachable. she'll try with her compasses, and then- well, then she'll try to find his shard. )

Okay.

[Beat.]

Thanks, Clarke.

Hey, of course. Happy to help.

( the line is cut after that, the locket closed; she has some work to do. )

( it's more than just a few minutes, in truth. mostly because she tries every possible avenue she has; her compass from the Seelie witch, the one from Waver, even going so far as to put a call out to her Red Hand lieutenants and their agents to look for him; anyone stationed in a city looks, gets back to her, and she knows the answer. she just- wishes she didn't.

Clarke casts her magic after that, draws her summoning rune on the back porch, waiting. it takes time, who knows where Yuri had been when it happened, but Clarke knows that what she's waiting for will arrive. when it does, the shard is a dull green, lifeless, and spins hot atop the rune she cast from the distance it travelled to be summoned to her. she takes time to collect herself; she needs to get used to this.

when her voice comes back over the locket again, hours later, it's still the same careful, even tone as before. )

Normally when people can't be reached over the lockets... it's because they've switched to the other court and their locket can't interact with ours anymore, or they're no longer in the Drabwurld.

[And when those few minutes had proved to be much more than that, Xion had started to get... well, worried. She'd been tempted to contact Clarke again herself, to check up on how she was doing. But it'd felt rude, so she kept herself in check.

Still, the first possibility helps bring home something she'd been wondering a bit about, while on her road trip to Quendi.]

Oh! Like Merida?

[So that was an actual thing that did happen....

That is when Clarke's other scenario dawns on her, and she frowns a little.]

Wait... we can leave?

I'm not sure I've met someone named Merida, but it is possible for it to happen to people. I've heard rumours, but never known anyone to do it. That's... not the case with Yuri, though. He's not over there.

( the question of leaving is a heavy subject, the cause of a great deal of heartache for many in the Drabwurld. most people just believe that those who disappear are sent back to their own worlds, either unfit to fight, or needed more pressingly in their own worlds.

the reality is worse, and Clarke isn't sure she wants to tell the truth. )

Your tie to the Drabwurld can be severed, and our shards are left behind in our wake.

I... met her during the truce. She said she used to be Unseelie.

[She hesitates. This whole conversation is beginning to leave a sinking feeling in her stomach. She remembers a little bit of talk about Shards and how they were important, but it's another topic on which many of the details were lost upon her at the time, and she can't really recall them now when she'd understand better.

She's putting two and two together, though.]

So when their tie is severed... they leave? But where did he go? Back home?

( it's not an easy thing to tell someone, about how the ties to their worlds work. not when it's coming alongside telling them that a friend has left. Clarke hadn't known until a royal audience a couple years ago, and only then did she know that when Raven's tie was severed, she didn't return home.

Clarke almost wishes she could still believe that. it was easier. )

When our tie to this world is severed, our tie to the worlds we come from is also broken. The monarchs on either side are constantly fighting to protect those ties, to make sure that we're here safe, as safe as one can be, and to ensure that the world we come from remains tied to this one, for its continued existence.

When the monarch from the opposite court breaks that tie, when their shard is all that's left of them, they're gone from this world and trapped in a space between the Drabwurld and the one they come from.

[There's a heavy, leaden feeling.]

What... what happens there? Will he be okay?

[She thinks she knows though. If that place was anywhere good... Xion still is having trouble recognizing some emotions and cues for what they are, but she knows if Yuri was fine, Clarke wouldn't be acting this way. She'd be doing something different (reassuring her), but she wasn't.

First it was finding out that the destruction of this world caused the destruction of all of theirs as well. And now if they're not connected to here, they're not connected to home as well.

On top of the lead weight, it feels like a hot fist is jammed in her stomach, and a lump in her throat that won't go away.]

Why? Why is this one world so important? Why can't our worlds - why can't we exist on our own?

[Why couldn't he be safe? Why couldn't they all be safe? It wasn't fair.]

He won't feel anything, I don't think. I'm pretty sure the people who are lost there don't really realize they're lost, but they're... Stuck there, wandering in the place between worlds, until either we win the war or the Monarchs are able to re-establish their ties to this world.

( her voice is gentle as she explains, soft, and she does her best to be compassionate about this. she's lost people too many times in the Drabwurld, has woken up to find one of her friends from home absent. this pain is a familiar one, and the weight in her hand is familiar, too. it isn't the first shard of a friend she's found.

she swallows thickly, reining in her upset the best she can. )

This is the world that all others were started from, every origin of every world can be traced back here. I wish- I wish I knew why we can't exist on our own, I wish I had an answer for you. I'm sorry.

It's stupid!

[It comes out as a harsh snap. If their worlds could exist on their own, then they wouldn't be brought here. Yuri would be home. She'd be home. They'd both be safe, figuring out everything on their own worlds.

Or maybe they would be here, but there wouldn't be this pressing need to listen to the monarchs and get involved in their dumb war. There wouldn't be a need to try to figure out all these wrongs from rights. Things that Yuri had tried to help explain to her. Yuri, who'd been one of the first people to really stick up for her. Who told her that it didn't matter what she was or what had happened to her.

And even if they were still brought here, if he'd gone home now he'd be okay. He wouldn't be lost or wandering.]

It's not fair!

[Just because it came first. Like the people who'd say that Somebodies were more important than Nobodies, just because the Somebodies were what Nobodies came from.]

( Clarke's thankful that she kept this to voice, that Xion won't see her flinch back from the bite in her tone. in all honesty she feels awful for this, that it had to be her that told her. but the alternative was a lie, and Clarke refused to set the tone for their friendship to be based on a lie as big as this one would have been.

she forces her voice to be gentle when she speaks, heavy with emotion despite how calm she tries to keep her tone. )

You're right. It is stupid, and it is unfair. I've lost a lot of friends in my time here, Xion, and it doesn't get easier. I'll always remember them, and I'll always miss them, and it's okay for you to be angry about it. I wish people were sent home when they left, I wish that was exactly what the monarchs were able to do.

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