TBTT 11. Passing the test by passing out

[moonshadows]

She is floating. Out of the darkness in which she floats, a single word emerges.

Drink.

 Copper-tinged electricity flows into her, brings with it the awareness of her body. She drinks, and becomes aware of a buzzing cloud of half-formed thoughts and repressed emotions. One mental hand reaches out to catch a thought fragment as it zips by, and she sees herself pitch face-first to the floor. Memory returns, the sparring match that meant so much to him – and which ended so abruptly with her ignoble faceplant.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the stripped copper wire that was feeding her falls out of her mouth. “I wasn’t good enough.”

The wire presses against her lips again, and she obediently opens her mouth to accept it. Electricity once again flows into her. The swarm of chaotic thoughts sharpens, consolidates.

“No. I pushed you too hard.” It’s my fault, my fault, my fault, always my fault, everything always turns out wrong. “I almost killed you.” Almost killed you, killed you, killed you. “Because of you, Tyrande is dead!” Not that, never that, would rather die, my fault my fault my fault.

She begins to open her mouth, but the cloud of his unprotected thoughts howls and focuses on her. Don’t speak, drink, drink, regain your strength. Need you to live, live, live, not die. “Because of you, Tyrande is dead!” Not again, never again, my fault, my fault, everything I try to build turns to ashes in my hands, my hands, my clawed demonic horrible- …hand. On my horn. Like before. Why, why? Why-

Eyes still closed, she drinks in electricity and focuses on running one trembling hand up whichever of his horns is closest. With her mind, she reaches into the jagged maze of broken memory and gels the guilt into stillness. The nodule of hope being battered by ‘Tyrande is dead’ gets pulled away, and she gels ‘Tyrande is dead’, too. There is a thread leading away from that memory and she follows it to ‘The priestess may still be alive.’ A false fear, then, but a strong one. She ties them both together, gels them, and tucks them out of the way. She doesn’t have the strength yet to do more than that, but with those stilled and the guilt no longer piercing anything that moves, the rest of the swarm calms considerably.

…pushed her too far, and her first thought is that she wasn’t good enough. I was never good enough. The guilt twitches, but is held too securely to interrupt the train of limping thought. Kept trying, kept failing. Maybe this time, it won’t fall apart. Hand on my- …trembling. Pushing herself too hard?

One clawed hand closes gently on her wrist, and she allows him to bring her hand back down. A deep draught of electricity, and she forces her eyes to open and focus on his worried face. “I didn’t want to stop,” she says weakly. “It was making you happy.”

…concerned for my happiness? No one cares whether or not I’m happy- the ‘my fault’ strains to go ricocheting through his mind, but the gel holds it in place. –but apparently she does. Something shudders its way out of the tangled jumble of doubts and recrimination, fears and pain. Broken like the rest of his mind, it lumbers over to the memory of the warglaives falling from her hands as she tumbles  to the floor and drops heavily down upon it, absorbing it, and now she can see what it is.

Responsibility. The scars of past failures and rotting remains of ruined hopes crisscross its crumbling surface, but she can tell that this is an integral part of him – and one that’s not quite as broken as the rest of his mind.  With a shuddering roar, the sense of responsibility heaves itself back up and charges startlingly fast at the fear that she will betray him. She watches in awe as responsibility savages fear with cries of if I hadn’t distrusted her, I wouldn’t have almost killed her. My fault twitches beneath the gel, wanting to gnaw on the responsibility, but the gel holds.

“Next time, tell me when you need a break.” He frowns at her, chastising, and the informal displeasure is more effective than any aura of painful death could ever be.

“Yes, my Lord,” she says meekly, but he shakes his head.

“Not ‘my Lord’. Not when we’re alone.” The bulky shape of responsibility flinches, the remnants of broken promises protruding from it bleeding pain by association.

She blinks and skims through his mind, trying to trace the tangled threads to their ends, to figure out what he wants to be called instead. ‘Shan’do’ is tainted with strands of pain that lead into a festering jungle of hatred and anguish. ‘Illidan’ is infected by the memory of a woman, lilac skin and silver eyes, crying it in horror and disgust. There is nothing else, except…

The responsibility roars, stomping restlessly about, and she wonders if he would object if he knew the connotations of what she is about to do. Taking a deep breath, she translates the Nathrezim term into a Kaldorei one and prepares to violate a social boundary by taking liberties he doesn’t know exist.

“Yes, my Kal’shan.” The giddy joy in her voice makes him blink as the meaning of the words – ‘honored star’ – penetrate the maze of jumbled emotions.

For the space of a breath he is frozen in place, one hand holding hers while his other arm supports her, and he trembles with the desire to hold her close again – but no, that would be improper of him. Millennia of social awkwardness swarm him and he releases her hand to bring the copper wire back to her lips. She accepts it and resumes drawing in energy before he can tell her to, her eyes still fixed on his in adoration.

I don’t deserve this. The single thought rings out silently. Emboldened by the acceptance of her devotion, even done in ignorance, she places a single thought in his mind like an offering to his sense of responsibility, watches it taste the thought and moan with the pain of fractured functionality.

You have it anyway.