we are the sword, we tame the fire, the flame

[scythegun]

[It's wonderful to be home.

Oh, sure, it hasn't been an easy transition into this particular version of Terca Lumireis. After all, that involved tracking down and killing this version of himself, which was far harder than it needed to be. Waiting for the proper moment to ambush himself while Gauche and Droite were nowhere nearby was the most difficult part. His original plan had been to actually fight, he took the more merciful option and simply sniped his other self. In some ways it was sort of traumatizing, in others it was completely liberating.

(But as long as he doesn't think about it for too long, things are fine, as usual.)

Regardless, he disposed of the body and slipped right back into his old life without missing a beat.

Of course, some things had to be handled immediately - namely, that whole mess with Altosk, the Don's grandson, and Belias - but somehow things had managed to work themselves out. Well, somewhat, Yeager's banned from Dahngrest again, but it's not like that's anything new, and it certainly won't keep him out of the city.

(Given that this was the Don's punishment for his guild's incredibly stupid and dangerous actions, Raven really did work hard to get him out of trouble.)

And so they return to their lives. For the time being, Leviathan's Claw is keeping a lower profile and taking on far fewer jobs, which is mostly to make Raven's life easier, not that Yeager will admit that. He's met with the other two several times since returning home - Raven more than Alexei, for obvious reasons - and while it's always nice to see them, it's almost always been exclusively about business.

Not that he minds that, truly. There's something wonderful about picking up right where he left off, without the consequences of his actions in his world to actually feel marginally guilty over. The Don is alive and well (and pissed at him) here, after all. Zaude hasn't been raised from the ocean floor, and the guilds and the Empire seem to be handling each other decently well... for now.

...But.

It's hard to pretend that his time away hasn't changed him. Droite and Gauche have noticed it too - they stare at him when they think he won't notice and whisper amongst themselves, and there's always the feeling there, whenever he talks to them, that something is off. With their behavior, with his, it isn't entirely clear. Maybe both. They don't know, of course - he took care of his other self's body so that it would never be found, after all - but they recognize that he's changed, they just haven't figured out how.

And really, he wouldn't know how to begin addressing any of that with them, so he simply doesn't.

Oh, he'll get around to it someday, probably. They are his daughters and he does want to treat them as such - but for now he wants things to be normal. He wants the normalcy he so desperately craved while in that horrid place, so maybe he can have this for a little bit. As a treat.

Still, he always leaves those meetings - particularly the ones with Alexei - feeling like talking about business (and strictly business) is sort of... frustrating.

(If only he could drag the Commandant out to set something on fire again.)

It's one of those meetings that's brought him into Empire territory today - he had business here anyway, so it's not like it was just to see Alexei - and he shows up to the appointed meeting place on time, dressed as always in the usual suit, with the usual briefcase at his side. Were it not for the (slightly) more genuine expression, it would be easy to assume that everything was just as it once had been, without a single difference whatsoever.

It's nice, in some ways. In others, it's maddening.]

Comments

[ideismo]

[Returning to business as usual has been...difficult, in its own way.

Destroying his other life in this world was an interesting endeavor; he hadn't particularly had many options, it was either fight or nothing, and it hasn't been until that fight had been engaged that it really sank in that he'd have to actually defeat this other version of himself. But there was something that became immediately obvious in the conflict that ensued, and that was that back then he had been less...desperate, maybe. Less determined, to put it charitably. After all that he had been through with the Beldam's little game, he quite simply wanted victory more, and so it was victory that he was going to have.

It also helped that the past version of himself was confused as hell as to what was going on.

But it hardly mattered, now that he was dead and the body disposed of; his sole regret about any of that was that he couldn't burn what was left. Either way, it was taken care of, and life continued on as normal. And that was where a lot of the difficulty came in; he no longer had his plans for Zaude to fall back on, and yet the Council continued to be itself completely unabashedly, and the Empire continued on with all of its corruption and failed attempts at evenhandedness, and outside of Yuri Lowell likewise continuing to be unabashedly himself there was nothing currently to be done about any of it. Surely he was still trying, he hadn't given up, and Schwann was seeing to it that he wouldn't fall to that immediately... But just the same, it was frustrating, the sort of thing that it took a concerted effort to not take out on those around him who didn't know -

It was that level of difficulty in adjusting that kept him from focusing too strongly on Yeager, and on Schwann, and on whatever it was that they were currently doing with one another; Alexei doesn't have much experience with relationships, and honestly, as long as no one referred to this one as such perhaps things would be okay. But that doesn't change the part where he greatly prefers the others' presence to their absence, and he thinks of them often and fondly when they're not around, and that whole thing is both new to him and more than somewhat perplexing. It's not completely out of left field with Schwann, in fairness, as he's always held a degree of fondness for Schwann that he's never been able to articulate; what is troublesome on that front is exactly how he used to express it, and his complete lack of desire to do that to him now. His private discussions with Schwann have been far more genuine nowadays, far more intimate, and while he's rather content with that there's a lingering sense of guilt that he would rather prefer not to address, and so in the end he just doesn't, and he knows Schwann won't bring it up until he does. Which is... It's fine, really, because for now it's going to have to be.

It's the conversations with Yeager, few though they've been, that have been strange to pin down. They always confine their talks to business, and that's...another thing that's going to have to be fine for now, because there is a lot of business to discuss, and it's something that's more than capable of taking up their time when they do see each other. He's all right with that for now, but it's in the same way that he's all right with everything else - it's in a way where it's fine because it is, and not because he wants it to be, because what he wants doesn't matter in the end. There's an order to things, and that's simply it.

(Haven't you ever wanted to use any of that power just to cause a little chaos because you can? Not for any sort of grand plan or whatnot, but just because you're able to?)

There are moments, however... Moments that involve meeting somewhere away from the capitol, in a rented room somewhere that Alexei knows his presence won't be recorded and their interactions won't be listened to, somewhere away from the Council's prying. Moments where he doesn't know what to do with Yeager's expression as he enters, and so he ignores it because this is just how things are. Business as usual.]

Yeager. It's appreciated, as always.

[That's not to say there aren't differences. Actually saying Yeager's presence is appreciated would have been completely beyond him before, for the simple reason that it wouldn't have been. But now...well, he can certainly admit that much.]