[ the forehead bonk is gentle, and familiar. fei du grounds himself in it, focuses on the sound of shenhe's voice, the words she's saying, and tries hard not to lose himself in his memories any longer. the first time he chose to remember this event, it was only broken by wenzhou shaking him out of it, with the exact same kind of anchoring personal contact.
you are not alone.
what a strange and new feeling, to have. fei du's been alone for most of his life - he's been the abyss, trapped in a hellish darkness where the worst of humanity is mired, destroying the lives of every regular person around them, dragging the world down by the ankles. it's only recently that the light has started to shine in, and it cracks open bit by bit in moments like this, when other people reach in and wrap their hand around his wrist and pull him free. for the first time, there's a tightness in his throat that has little to do with choking.
he exhales. slow. shaky, and manages a soft laugh, wry. ]
... I'd rather that you hadn't found out. [ but he doesn't pull away, either, so. that's a sign of progress, from fei du, small as it is.] ...thank you.
[she doesn't need a thank you for something like this. she understands, maybe more than he knows, regarding the abyss. and besides - in a second she's going to have to tell him sorry, because her own memory plays.
You are sitting in the garden of your childhood home, in a little village that you've grown up in. You are six years old, and your father has been away for a year, though you're not sure why. It makes you sad, sometimes, when you think about it. Your mother is gone, and the village takes turns making sure that you aren't starving, but for the most part, you're just alone, making up stories and playing with the stray dogs in the village. It's lonely. You're very lonely.
So when your father returns after that year, and he gives you a smile that borders on manic, you don't notice how it looks. You're overjoyed - father is back, and maybe this time, he won't leave. Maybe this time your curse won't drive him away. You can be good this time. You will find a way to make sure that you don't hurt him or anybody else ever again. Maybe he's forgiven you for what happened to your mother.
He doesn't even wash up, when he returns. He comes straight to the garden and smiles widely at you, and says that you should come with him to the cave in the mountains behind the village. He has a surprise for you, to make up for the fact that he hasn't been home. You don't really hope for much, but. A toy would be nice! Maybe a kite, or something that the two of you can play with together.
Your father brings you to the cave. You make sure your long black hair is out of the way, ready for whatever the surprise is.
But he barely even pays attention to you as he strides into the cave. He goes right to the altar in the middle, constructed out of stone, and he flicks through a book, and he mutters. And you take a step forward because you're unsure. Maybe you should help? You take another step forward, and then - out of the book swirls something dark and hideous, a black and rotting creature that has no shape at first as it crawls out. It drips out of the book, and your father turns and starts to walk away.
You're confused - you're a little scared, so you say, "Father?" and he ignores you, and so you look back at the shadows that soak down out of the pages, and you see it is growing teeth. It is watching you with bright blood-red eyes, and when it meets your gaze, it licks its lips.
You stumble back, and you start to cry - you are six years old, and this is the scariest thing you've ever seen - and you turn and race after your father. This isn't what he meant, right? This can't be the surprise - but he pushes you to the ground and sneers at you.
"You are a cursed child," he spits, and you stare up at him from where you're crumpled on the ground. You reach for him. No, it - no, this time, it'll be better. This time you won't bring ruin to everybody around you, you promise, you will find a way to be good, but he just shakes his head and keeps walking. "Your life brings nothing but disaster to us all."
You stand, shakily, and run, but something grabs your leg, and you scream as the monster drags you back. Your father leaves.
"At least if you die, I can bring her back." And the light from outside vanishes as the monster pulls you towards its mouth.
But as a child - a child who hasn't grown up just yet, a child who hasn't forsaken emotion and the joys of living because you know that you aren't allowed those anymore - you don't want to die. You want to play outside, and you want to make friends with the other children in the village, and you want your mother back, and you want your father to love you, and you don't want to die you don't want to die you want to live --
The sleeping calamitous fates, violent urges, and unyielding spirit within you burst their bonds all at once. They are your unseen shield, your invisible blade, and they are all that your frail form has to protect yourself. You have a dagger that belonged to your mother. Instinct has you cut open part of the monster and it wails, and you run to hide. Your next attack is with fangs and claws; you swear to tear that wretched creature before you to shreds — to prove that you, and not it, are the cruelest evil that stalked the darkness.
For days, your life-and-death battle is one without end. Hunter and hunted switch places many times, the conflict locked in stalemate. Sometimes it rips at your skin and sometimes it just chases you when it finds you. Sometimes you beat it back just enough to find some time to rest. But you are exhausted. You can't sleep. You're hungry, and you're thirsty, and everything hurts, but you don't want to die. You refuse. You won't. But there's only so much that your tiny body can handle, and eventually, you collapse. You're afraid. You know it is coming, the monster, with its snakelike body and hungry maw. But you can't find the strength to continue.
And that's when the tide changes.
A vivid icy light pierces through the dark like skyglow, showing the path to the future. A crystalline object falls down from nowhere, into your hands. You look down at it shakily, trying to breathe. You know, instinctively, that this will allow you to wield ice. That you can use this to decide which monster will live, and which will die.
You pull yourself to your feet one more time. You wipe the tears away.
It's the last time you ever cried. It's the last time you felt anything at all.
you're not alone. maybe it's not as violent, sadistic, but - you're not alone.]
[ the worst part of this memory is that it's familiar in more ways than one.
it's familiar in the way that he was here with shenhe, standing in this cave in the VR room back in the UG. he remembers - he'd never seen her look the way she did then. not so much afraid as almost violently uncomfortable, remembers the story she'd told him as they padded their way through. but more so than that...
... someone said to fei du about his own memories, that his father should have loved him. fei du knows fei chengyu wasn't capable of it, and there's something a thousand times worse to know that this father must have loved her mother, that he was capable, and cast shenhe to the side because of it. it's violently cruel in the way that his life hasn't been, and every second that passes in the memory is more brutal than the rest. he knows shenhe is tenacious and a fighter, and he knows children can be pushed to the edge, but watching this is nothing if not a reminder of how innocence can be stole and smashed to pieces with an axe, in as much as its a reminder of survival.
when the memory ends, with the crystalline vision, he exhales, a fierce, sharp noise. they're still close together - she still holds his hand, and he squeezes hers, tight, and lets its the last time you felt anything at all resonate in his ribs. ]
Shenhe. [ fei du says, very softly, in case she's still drifting in the memory the way he would be, and pushes their foreheads together a little further, reaching up to do exactly what she did for him - to push a lock of her hair back, stroking his fingers through it like a reminder. stay here. ]
[he was capable of love, is the thing, that's true. the fact that he could've accepted the loss of her mother and could've held his hands out to her but didn't... it hurts. nothing could have stood in the way of his true love. nothing.
that cave made her into the monster she is, and she's still slowly unlearning everything it taught her.
but she's had years to distance herself from it. and so when he gets her attention, she just exhales shakily and presses back. it's alright. she's here.]
I'm fine. [...] Our fathers did not love us the way they should have.
[ his heart hurts for that little girl. childhood is such a fragile thing, isn't it? how easily it can be stolen from you, ripped away by the ministrations and selfish actions of the people who were supposed to raise you.
his thumb, very gently, slides over the top of shenhe's knuckles, once he's sure she's in the present moment. he'll take the phrase - i'm fine - whether it's true or not, out of the grace that she gave him when she saw the thing that made him a monster, too.
the comment - he. laughs, just this soft, short noise. ]
No. [ no, they did not. ] What a terrible thing to have in common.
he finally pulls back just a little, enough that he can reach up and rub his face under the weight of the memories with his free hand, pushing the last bastions of shenhe's and his alike away and into his little brain filing cabinet. the comment is so sweet - he makes a soft noise in response, giving her a wry smile. ]
You shouldn't. [ there's nothing about him worth admiring, actually, because he is a trash person, but he will let shenhe say she does if she wants to. ] But... thank you, nonetheless.
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no subject
you are not alone.
what a strange and new feeling, to have. fei du's been alone for most of his life - he's been the abyss, trapped in a hellish darkness where the worst of humanity is mired, destroying the lives of every regular person around them, dragging the world down by the ankles. it's only recently that the light has started to shine in, and it cracks open bit by bit in moments like this, when other people reach in and wrap their hand around his wrist and pull him free. for the first time, there's a tightness in his throat that has little to do with choking.
he exhales. slow. shaky, and manages a soft laugh, wry. ]
... I'd rather that you hadn't found out. [ but he doesn't pull away, either, so. that's a sign of progress, from fei du, small as it is.] ...thank you.
no subject
[she doesn't need a thank you for something like this. she understands, maybe more than he knows, regarding the abyss. and besides - in a second she's going to have to tell him sorry, because her own memory plays.
you're not alone. maybe it's not as violent, sadistic, but - you're not alone.]
no subject
it's familiar in the way that he was here with shenhe, standing in this cave in the VR room back in the UG. he remembers - he'd never seen her look the way she did then. not so much afraid as almost violently uncomfortable, remembers the story she'd told him as they padded their way through. but more so than that...
... someone said to fei du about his own memories, that his father should have loved him. fei du knows fei chengyu wasn't capable of it, and there's something a thousand times worse to know that this father must have loved her mother, that he was capable, and cast shenhe to the side because of it. it's violently cruel in the way that his life hasn't been, and every second that passes in the memory is more brutal than the rest. he knows shenhe is tenacious and a fighter, and he knows children can be pushed to the edge, but watching this is nothing if not a reminder of how innocence can be stole and smashed to pieces with an axe, in as much as its a reminder of survival.
when the memory ends, with the crystalline vision, he exhales, a fierce, sharp noise. they're still close together - she still holds his hand, and he squeezes hers, tight, and lets its the last time you felt anything at all resonate in his ribs. ]
Shenhe. [ fei du says, very softly, in case she's still drifting in the memory the way he would be, and pushes their foreheads together a little further, reaching up to do exactly what she did for him - to push a lock of her hair back, stroking his fingers through it like a reminder. stay here. ]
no subject
that cave made her into the monster she is, and she's still slowly unlearning everything it taught her.
but she's had years to distance herself from it. and so when he gets her attention, she just exhales shakily and presses back. it's alright. she's here.]
I'm fine. [...] Our fathers did not love us the way they should have.
no subject
his thumb, very gently, slides over the top of shenhe's knuckles, once he's sure she's in the present moment. he'll take the phrase - i'm fine - whether it's true or not, out of the grace that she gave him when she saw the thing that made him a monster, too.
the comment - he. laughs, just this soft, short noise. ]
No. [ no, they did not. ] What a terrible thing to have in common.
[ dads suck, actually? they suck. ]
You've grown so much since then, darling.
no subject
It has been a difficult thing.
[growing, trying to figure out who she is. she stays where she is, taking that understanding. they are so alike, in some ways. that's comforting too.]
... I admire you, Fei Du. [because he has spent his whole life trying not to be what his father made him into. she's not sure she tried that hard.]
no subject
he finally pulls back just a little, enough that he can reach up and rub his face under the weight of the memories with his free hand, pushing the last bastions of shenhe's and his alike away and into his little brain filing cabinet. the comment is so sweet - he makes a soft noise in response, giving her a wry smile. ]
You shouldn't. [ there's nothing about him worth admiring, actually, because he is a trash person, but he will let shenhe say she does if she wants to. ] But... thank you, nonetheless.