purrtagonist | [empatheias ic contact]

Mm.

[Shin-Ah angled his head to face Akira, much to Ao's chittering delight. Strange looks were hardly a deterrant for him, from how peaceful he seemed in that moment.

Perhaps it was the quiet of the night that was only offered by being above the streets of Verens. Perhaps it was a goal. Perhaps it was something more.

Silently, Shin-Ah pointed upward, at the moon hanging above them in the sky. Although it was just past full, it was still large and a peaceful presence that evening.

Perhaps a little stargazing was in order?]

[Akira tilts his gaze up, following the line of Shin-Ah's finger. stargazing, huh. . .]

[without protest, he grabs the top of the windowsill and, with a surprising amount of grace, leaps through the window and lands on the ground next to Shin-Ah. he doesn't fetch his glasses beforehand, which is probably telling. he doesn't need them to stargaze]

[wordlessly, he takes a seat next to his friend, and stares up at the sky]

[Glasses that weren't needed to stargaze...?

How curious. Shin-Ah had only seen glasses that were necessary for people to see properly. Given his circumstances, he was deeply interested in how they worked and what they could do. But, perhaps this person had reasons for wearing them that weren't as obvious to the onlooker?

After all. His eyes were an astonishingly clear gray that was only noticeable without their thick frames getting in the way.

Shaking his head to clear these thoughts, Shin-Ah cast his gaze up at the sky once more.]

...Shin-Ah. [He said softly, without preamble.] It means 'Moonlight' in my country.

[now is as good of a time as any for Shin-Ah to figure out the glasses were fake]

Ah. . .

[Akira replies quietly, voice barely above a whisper. mostly because speaking aloud right now felt like it would disturb the quiet and peaceful night air]

I like it. It suits you.

[in a way that only a wild card could understand, with Shin-Ah being of the Moon arcana]

Yo--mm.

[Shin-Ah stopped himself mid-thought, recalling his one friend's wish for privacy in their affairs.]

A friend gave it to me.

[And, through the uncanny connections granted them by the amulets, Shin-Ah offers an image of his friends for clarity. As if that helped to explain anything.]

[he remembers being shown a very similar image before. he knows how important Shin-Ah's companions are to him]

This friend must know you very well.

[he doesn't pry for a name. if it was one to be shared, then Shin-Ah would've said it by now]

[A nod. They all did know eachother very well-- better than most people would imagine.]

They...

[He trailed off, uncertain how to properly explain himself in a way that was easily understood and wouldn't require too much extra paraphrasing. Their similarities needed to be addressed somehow-- and this was a good opportunity to do so.

Taking a deep breath, Shin-Ah tried again.]

They helped me walk under the sun.

[there's a pause]

. . . literally? Or metaphorically?

[Shin-Ah tipped his head to the side in idle curiosity-- and shared with Akira yet another image:

This time, an echoing darkness that remained unlit by any torches dominated. Indistinct voices could be heard in the endless labyrinth of the cavernous passages, too distanced from his person to matter and too hardened by unfounded hatred and fear to dare bridging that distance to soothe his own heart. A faint jingling of bells could be heard. A pang of lonliness that had long been accepted as the norm.

The answer, Akira, was 'Both.' The Moon needs the Sun to shine, after all.]

Edited 2017-08-07 02:20 (UTC)

[holy shit]

[Akira almost jerks back as the image and emotion hit him a lot harder than he might have expected. maybe it was the loneliness, maybe it was the darkness of the cavern, so similar to the Velvet Room he used to frequent. he isn't quite sure]

[he closes his eyes though. draws one leg up to rest his chin on his knee. breathes out deeply]

. . . I see. [a pause] Then I'm glad for you. Really.

...Don't be sad,

[He intoned quietly, for he knew those tell-tale signs of feelings unspoken all too well by now. The nice words people said whenever they found out about his history became too difficult to respond to at times-- and, even now, he wasn't sure what to say.

The memory hadn't been shared for sympathy, but for a different reason.]

I'm not alone, [he added,] ...we're not alone.

[...Do you remember that odd dream? He did-- and he felt that maybe sharing of himself in his own time of pain might be helpful to another right now.]

[he finally tears his eyes away from the sky to meet Shin-Ah's gaze head on]

. . .

You remember that dream, then. Don't you?

[it's the only thing he can think of that would have made this guy share something so intimately personal with him. and despite the faint pangs of his past loneliness (that are quickly beginning to fade), he also finds himself feeling. . . grateful]

[b i n g o.

Or, so a person from Akira's era would say. Shin-Ah merely levels his gaze, mask and all, with the young man's and offers a quiet nod in reply. He did remember... and he hadn't wanted to intrude.]

...You seemed sad there.

[Shin-Ah finally said at length, recalling the literal bars that kept him bound in that cell. In many ways, that cavern was worse than the one Shin-Ah escaped from.

After all, the chains that had bound Shin-Ah weren't literal at all. They were merely in his own mind.]

[heh. . .]

[the light laugh escapes Akira's lips before he can stop it. he dips his head, eyes slipping shut, and a wry smile curls up the corners of his mouth]

I was never sad. [hhhesitates. this, again, is so intensely personal to him he just doesn't even know where to begin] Angry? Yeah. Lonely? Just a little bit.

[he looks up again, this time lifting a hand to reach for the sky, like he's trying to pluck a star and bring it down to Earth]

But if you remember the dream, then you remember that's now how things are for me anymore.

[A nod. He remembered...]

You walked.

[It was a mess of affairs that he didn't understand and didn't want to pry into, but the gist of it was that Akira walked-- and Akira didn't walk alone. Shin-Ah watched the young man in curiosity, wondering for a moment if he really could pluck a star from the unending sky...

Perhaps not Akira himself, he realized. Perhaps that masked figure who had stood in Akira's place for a few moments in that dream.]

Um... [He began, tearing his gaze away in favor of the sky once more as he searched for the proper words to say.] In that place. You had a mask... why?

[Shin-Ah gets it well enough that Akira doesn't have to elaborate]

Yeah. I did.

[he brings his hand down and tugs at his bangs]

The mask is a part of me. [gosh, how does he even explain it] A physical manifestation of my. . . soul. A physical manifestation of every Persona I wear when facing the world.

[Starting simply may be for the best-- because in that explanation is a word that Shin-Ah had never heard before:]

...Persona?

Persona. The aspect of someone's character that is perceived by others.

[he uses the terminology in the more typical way it's known, as a foundation. so Shin-Ah can at least get an idea of the symbolism behind the mask in the first place]

[A nod. That made sense-- to a degree. But, the way that Akira had worded his earlier sentence was peculiar to Shin-Ah's ear's.]

'Every' is more than one.

[He intoned quietly, although he could see some reason for it. After all, the person he was now was drastically different from the person he was before he left the caves.

He had a name now, after all.

But... few people had to live with the duality of something 'other' coloring their life and their fate both in a literal and metaphorical sense-- to that, Shin-Ah canted his head to the side in interest.]

That's a lot.

Most people only have one personality, or one mask with which to face the world.

I have many.

[he doesn't know why, or really, how that worked in practice, but. it did, and he didn't question it. his power of the wild card is what helped him lead his team, after all]

[That was a bit much for Shin-Ah to grasp, but he thought he understood. Nodding slowly, he elaborated.]

Borrowed space, many faces.... and, borrowed power?

[He wasn't forgetting that mask and the strange aura Akira seemed to carry while wearing it so easily. It was almost haunting to behold.]

Not exactly borrowed power. [not entirely, anyway] My power comes from within.

But I have help in making it stronger.

Persona.... power from within, but with help as well.

[He nodded, understanding this to an extent-- and, having learned something of interactions in the months since he had entered this city, took a slow breath before continuing.]

Before I was Shin-Ah... I was 'Seiryuu,' [he confessed, not knowing if that name would have any meaning for Akira or not. Legends of dragon gods were more universal than he realized, but he had yet to make a point of studying that for himself.]

Not... for me. For the dragon who gave it's power to the one who founded the village.

[. . . Seiryuu. Seiryuu had been a part of Akira's soul, once]

The Azure Dragon.

[he repeats, drawing on his knowledge of the legends]

. . . what do you mean? "For the dragon who gave its power to the one who founded the village?"

Just that.

[And he lifted his mask, showing Akira the golden gleam of his dragon-like eyes once more.]

[empatheias ic contact]

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