travelerscurse (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
travelerscurse) wrote2021-04-09 03:10 pm
travelerscurse) wrote2021-04-09 03:10 pm
for whatsina_name
It's so strange, being back.
Ishgard hasn't changed in hundreds of years, strange to think it would have changed since he'd been here last, but then, everywhere else he'd been has changed just in the time he's been there. So it's strange to be walking streets he knows from his childhood but with eyes that are so different.
Beside him, Emmanelain chatters on about the different facets of city life. He had made sure Haurchefant knew to petition his former family with as much discretion as possible. They, of course, had simply said their son had died and they were certain some fugitive from Uldah couldn't be him anyway. He hadn't expected any differently. He feels like that person is dead and he breathes on as someone wholly different anyway, but it's strange, to be being shown around the place he grew up in by a member of one of the High Houses, someone his parents would have killed for him to be friends with just a few short years earlier, as though he were a stranger to this place.
He has always been a stranger to this place.
Dressed in Gridanian fashion and tanned lightly by the sun, he doesn't expect there's anyone here who would recognize him. He'd been barely more than a ghost when he left, hardly a warrior of anything. But as they pass through the Jeweled Croizer and Emmanelain gets caught up talking to some girl he's been trying to woo, there's a sudden, strange sensation at the back of his head, something like and unlike the Echo, and he turns, eyes scanning the busy street for... something. Someone.
(For some reason, unbidden, he remembers the night of the Calamity, giant pieces of some other part of Eorzea raining from the sky..
Ishgard hasn't changed in hundreds of years, strange to think it would have changed since he'd been here last, but then, everywhere else he'd been has changed just in the time he's been there. So it's strange to be walking streets he knows from his childhood but with eyes that are so different.
Beside him, Emmanelain chatters on about the different facets of city life. He had made sure Haurchefant knew to petition his former family with as much discretion as possible. They, of course, had simply said their son had died and they were certain some fugitive from Uldah couldn't be him anyway. He hadn't expected any differently. He feels like that person is dead and he breathes on as someone wholly different anyway, but it's strange, to be being shown around the place he grew up in by a member of one of the High Houses, someone his parents would have killed for him to be friends with just a few short years earlier, as though he were a stranger to this place.
He has always been a stranger to this place.
Dressed in Gridanian fashion and tanned lightly by the sun, he doesn't expect there's anyone here who would recognize him. He'd been barely more than a ghost when he left, hardly a warrior of anything. But as they pass through the Jeweled Croizer and Emmanelain gets caught up talking to some girl he's been trying to woo, there's a sudden, strange sensation at the back of his head, something like and unlike the Echo, and he turns, eyes scanning the busy street for... something. Someone.
(For some reason, unbidden, he remembers the night of the Calamity, giant pieces of some other part of Eorzea raining from the sky..
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He says it like it’s simple, because to him it is. Phillip never speaks about his fellows, and while it might be assumed to be part of their discretion, it is also in part because he doesn’t have the kind of connection to them that the two of them have to each other, or the Scions, or most anyone else in this realm. His feelings about the other Ascians are... complicated, to say the least, and he doesn’t believe in their goal enough to pursue it in the face of all this. Hells, he actively ran away from it. Making sure the people he loves are happy and safe truly seems like the natural choice.
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"I don't know what to tell you, what to say that I haven't already said. I don't know what you need to hear. But there's nothing you need to say and there never has been."
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“I don’t understand,” he finally says, because he doesn’t and turning it around in his head isn’t helping, “If I don’t need to say anything, then... what is the problem?” What else is holding this back?
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He sighs, settles back down to Phillip's chest.
"Don't misunderstand, the complication isn't in my heart, it's in all the rest of it. I'm going to die trying to save the world, like every other bearer of the Echo, like every other Warrior of Light," he says it so plainly, "It scares me, but tis the truth, and there's naught to be done about it. The likelihood that it will be an Ascian that kills me, directly or indirectly, is so high as to be nigh indisputable. But then I will be in the aetherial sea, beyond caring, and you will be here. Can you blame me for not wishing that fate on you?"
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He raises his free hand to his face, and it’s likely not clear what emotion drives it, frustration or bafflement or annoyance. “Why do you think I am here?” he asks, and the tone of his voice does not clear up anything, “Do you think I did not know that you would die long, long, long before me? I have already made that choice, that being around those whose lives are so utterly fleeting as all of yours is preferable to being alone.”
He drops his hand, and while the curve of his face is closer to annoyed, his eyes are different, filled with depths of sadness. “I have watched those I care for die before,” he says, and there’s clearly more to that but he’s not getting into it now, “I don’t enjoy it, certainly, but having nothing is not better. I can only try to keep you with me as long as possible.”
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"Of course I'm worried about you. I love you." To him, the connection seems obvious. He does, however, let Phillip get the rest of it out, patient and silent for a moment, before there's that slow, sly smile, the one that usually means trouble, but also sometimes, just means he's being some kind of clever or wry,
"So you're saying you prefer me selfish, when it comes to you?" it's teasing and pitched like he's definitely referencing pushing him down in the dirt, to the extent that Phillip might have to check to make sure his eyes are normal, but it's a real question.
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And really, Phillip does want it. He wants to claim and be claimed, even if it’s temporary, even if it won’t last forever. It would be enough, for now.
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"I don't know about that. I live in the world I'm saving, after all. And so do you," he leans in though and the tail end of the last word melts into a warm, soft kiss. "Maybe what I am is the most selfish," he adds, between one kiss and the next.
They don't really lead anywhere, or at least, he's not using them to lead anywhere. It just feels good to be warm and relaxed in bed at the moment. He's tired, and, if Phillip isn't planning on stopping him, he's probably going to eventually more or less doze off between kisses. He's still awake enough to be prevented, however, if Phillip is so inclined.
no subject