i wear the sunglasses at night | canon update catch-all

[lipochrome]

Who: Gideon Nav and CR
What: Gideon is coming out of her cocoon and doing just fine
When: October 13
Where: Cobra Kai, Bone House in Gaze

Content Warnings: Spoilers for Nona the Ninth throughout. Marked in comment headers otherwise.





( starters in the comments! )

Comments

[peripheries]

[The the start of awakening was miserable but he endured. A small price to pay to see his sister again. Then cold numbness starts to sink in, but instead of starting in his extremities like a small leak. His S^2 organ seems to pump it out like blood in a beating heart. At first it hurts and then... nothing.

It's just emptiness. Like he's nothing but an outline with a vast blankness within. He knows she's why he feels that way.

So he can't leave her.]

What happened? Don't you... remember me?

[lipochrome]

[ This question again. Kiriona rolls her eyes; she's dead, not stupid. ]

Duh, I remember you.

[ There is a feeling in Kiriona's chest that is almost like a dampness, but that doesn't make any sense. All she has is a hole. There's nothing there to get wet.

(It does not occur to her that her confusion is not her own.) ]

What, you need me to tell you twice? I don't want you to come with me.

[ There. Even clearer. ]

[peripheries]

Then why are you leaving?

[He exhales slow, like breathing too quickly will aggravate the hole in his chest. ...The hole in her chest.

It makes his entire body hurt.]

You're the one who brought me back. That's why we have the bond. The bond means we should stay together.

[lipochrome]

Because I'm the Crown Prince.

[ The best thing about having a haughty title is that it's an easy bandage to apply to the gaping hole in Kiriona's heart. It's a blanket that snuffs out the flame of fear, a balm, a drug. It's easy for Kiriona to tell herself she likes it. ]

Get real. You bonded with Gideon Nav. Do you really think she's me? [ Kiriona scoffs. ] I'm her Divine Highness, Kiriona Gaia, and frankly, I'm too good for this shit.

[ It's nice to say. It'd probably be nice to believe, too. ]

Look at you. [ There's a note of derision creeping into Kiriona's voice, although it's hard to say who it's directed towards. ] You can't even breathe right around me.

[peripheries]

I can't breath right because you feel so empty inside!

[Don't turn this around on him! Even as he looks defiant, he continues to follow her, as though keeping distance is a way to further prove his point.]

You can be whatever you want but you're still Gideon. That's why we're still bonded. He... did this to you. You and I, back home, we were both gone. No one else understood that but us.

cw: suicide

[lipochrome]

[ Kaworu doesn't get it. He says he does, but that's another lie. The only person who understands is in a house in Gaze, and he'll welcome her back. Kiriona knows he will. She's his heir, after all. All Kaworu wants to do is tie her down, and Kiriona has never liked being imprisoned.

(She doesn't think about what her body is, other than a gift.) ]

Oh, you're gone? Don't be fucking coward about it. You're dead. I'm mega-dead. But it looks like you can't handle being bonded to my super-cool, very-dead body, so I think you should go back to your boyfriends and leave me the fuck alone. Make a little doll of me or whatever if you really want to, I guess.

[ That's all they really knew, anyway. ]

I did this to myself. And it was super noble and cool, just so you know.

[ With that, Kiriona keeps walking. ]

cw: self-injury

[peripheries]

No!

[He reaches out to grab at her, small fingers catching against brilliant white fabric. His skin is so pale, it's almost indistinguishable from the cloth.] You said it yourself. We're still bonded. And that's not just our bodies, it's our hearts too. Otherwise, it wouldn't still be there.

[His voice starts quiet and then rises in higher conflection as hysteria starts to seep into every syllable.]

I'll prove it to you!

[Slightly wild-eyed, he takes out a knife on his belt (courtesy of one boyfriend) and, without a single flinch or moment of hesitation, slams the blade into his shoulder where a cherished handprint still remains.]

cw: injury, referenced suicide

[lipochrome]

[ Kiriona recoils, as if struck, clapping her hand to the shoulder that mirrors Kaworu's own. It's a foolish gesture -- Kiriona can't bleed, even Kaworu had stabbed her instead of himself. The pain is the same, though, and it's a foreign thing for Kiriona. She hasn't felt anything like that in six months. Or longer, even -- over a year.

She remembers a spike. She remembers her last living bloom of pain, and how she had dedicated it to the Ninth, and how they didn't accept it, even when her gift was holy. She curls in a little bit, bringing her other hand up towards her chest. ]

Don't. Don't do this. It's not worth it.

[ Kiriona's voice is a horrible thing, almost pleading. She staggers back a few paces. ]

Just leave me alone.

[ Please. ]

cw: injury/self-harm

[peripheries]

[The knife cuts easy, quick and clean. Like a good knife should, says Paul. Even as he drags the tip down his pale flesh, the skin heals, following the point of the knife like a river filling an empty valley.

It hurts. But only for a few seconds. Not long enough. It's never long enough to help.]

Of course it is! Connections are worth more than anything else in the world. It's why humans try to connect even though it's painful.

[Tears burn at the edges of his eyes. They hurt worse than the knife. His arm is wet from blood that no longer has a source.]

You're worth it.

cw: injury/self-harm

[lipochrome]

[ You're worth it, Kaworu says, as he slices open his own thing. There is a part of Kiriona -- a missing, long-lost part -- that wants to take Kaworu in her arms, and take away his knife, and apologize for hurting him.

But that part belongs to Gideon Nav, who died over a year ago. All that will do now is open up Kiriona to more loss. If she tries to love, it'll just tear open wider the hole where her heart used to be.

Instead, she settles on a compromise. Kiriona lunges forward, as fast as she was when she was alive, and tries to wrestle the knife out of Kaworu's hand. If it pins him to the ground, so be it -- maybe now, he won't follow her. ]

If it hurts, then it isn't worth shit.

[ Kaworu must know that. He must understand. ]

Go connect with Paul and Deku instead.

[peripheries]

[He doesn't fight her. He wanted to see something in her. Something that proved Gideon, or at least Gideon's experiences still lived on. He got that.

The knife clatters to the floor in deference. But his eyes, red meeting gold, are defiant.]

You're worth it.

[lipochrome]

[ Isn't this what she always wanted? To be worth it to someone, for them to want her around, to care? But being faced with that here, now, is dizzying. It doesn't make any sense. And the pthumerians could take it away at any moment, and Kaworu doesn't understand.

She startles, like a frightened horse. And much like that frightened horse, she bolts.

She leaves the knife behind. ]

[peripheries]

No!

[He reaches out, maybe she thought it was for the knife, but it was for her. He tries to grab those specks of Gideon Nav inside Kiriona Gaia so he can hold them up and show them to the world. But like trying to grab specks of light through a dusty window, there's nothing but emptiness in his hand.]

Don't abandon me.

[He pleads after she's already fled.]