[He almost averts his eyes, once he realizes what he's watching. Not because the scene is gruesome, though it is. Not because it unfolds into horror, though it does. But because something like this isn't supposed to be for him to see — because this is being exposed in a uniquely cruel and violating way, taking images that Rynlan never wanted to share and hanging them up for all manner of scrutiny and regard.
He almost looks away, except that looking away won't help. The sounds will still be there. To say nothing of the fact that this is hell, and more likely than not the images would just project onto the backs of his eyelids even if he did try to close them, because cruelty is the point. It could only be the point, of a moment like this.
So he looks. Sees how strikingly beautiful Rynlan was before whatever corruption took him; understands with new poignancy why he hates mirrors so much, why the person reflected in them is wrong, wrong, always wrong. He sees the ripping talons catch his leg and already knows that it will be lost, that a prosthetic will be needed in place of whatever wreckage of a limb they might leave behind — if they leave anything behind at all.
He sees the paladin. He's wearing armor. It doesn't disguise the knowledge that somewhere on him, there's a ring.
He watches, because this is hell, and as the Rynlan in the projection begins to howl he picks up a chair and smashes it into the screen in a single rapid and unbroken movement, hard enough to crush a hole into the center and send spiderweb cracks skittering all throughout the rest.
It's impossible to say whether it's his percussive maintenance or the natural end of the memory that stops it. This is hell, so likely it's the latter. But it was worth it to attempt the former anyway.]
...Ryn.
[He wavers, just on that syllable. Unsure what to say. Don't comment. Don't draw attention. Don't leave him feeling exposed.]
[he's looking away, arms folded so tight it's like he's trying to wrap them around himself-- like that will afford him a measure of protection from seeing this, from being reminded again of something he still has nightmares of from time to time.
he expects-- he doesn't know. sympathy. pity. he doesn't expect what thancred actually offers, attention snapping to him, eyes slightly wide behind his glasses.]
You-
[whatever he means to say dies in his throat, choked, and he shakes his head.]
[It's patient, the way the words leave his mouth. Steady. Coaxing. And he knows better than to think Ryn wants to be touched right now, not with his body language screaming loud and clear to stay away, to keep distance, but —
But what good is a promise like I'll protect you against something like this? Nothing. Because there's nothing he can position himself between, nothing he can fight. Not when it's this.
He wants to reach for him. It's a motion that makes it only a few ilms before it falls short, and he takes his hand back, bringing it back down again to his side.]
[he's right, he doesn't want to be touched. what he wants and needs might be two different things-- but he's a little relieved that thancred doesn't, anyway.
he promises, effectively, to forget he's seen this, that rynlan was exposed at all, and it's that exact sort of understanding that makes him a little more willing to speak of his own accord.]
...I didn't say anything about him, before. His name was Aren. Knew each other for a couple of decades.
[it's a little bit of an invitation, a concession to the memory. a sign he's at least somewhat willing to talk about it.]
[His gaze drifts, migrating slowly from Ryn's face to the set of his ears, then down further to his tightly-clutched arms, and after a moment he shrugs off his gunbreaker's coat and offers it to him by the back of the collar — an invitation of something to wrap up in, one more psychological shield against the anguish that had played out on the screen.
An embrace that involves no touch whatsoever.]
How long is a few decades, for you and yours? 'Tis a different reckoning of time, isn't it?
eventually he does take the coat, draping it around himself. rynlan may be taller, but while it's short on him it's still oversized in every other way, given that he's entirely too thin.]
It isn't long. I'm an adult, by our standards, but still on the young end. [and that's at 145 or so.] But it felt longer, with everything that happened in those years.
[It quiets something in him, watching Ryn take the offering given. Something fussy and territorial, appeased by the sight of comfort accepted even in this indirect and minor way.]
No-- those weren't creatures of the void. Those were the Scourge. The undead.
[his ears both twitch, reflexive.]
Their king and his army invaded our lands. Plagued the southern half of our territory so badly we still haven't cleansed it. Killed the majority of our population. That place-- it's their territory.
[where they took the fight to them-- everyone, not only the elves. there were only three in the unit in his memory, the rest composed of various races.]
Those vials... we had to burn every body that we could so that they couldn't reanimate them, but it's hard to get a fire going in Icecrown.
And he had been burned. So there was no chance of it for him.
[And so many things are snapping into such terrible clarity now. Why a statement like if I get you out then I've done my job well would provoke such a vehement and furious reaction. Why I've made my peace with it would be so abrasive and heartrending.]
Was that what changed your hair, the revival?
[It's so much more than just hair, but he's still being careful about don't remark on my appearance, so this is likely the safest bet he can employ.]
No, this is-- this came with being void-touched, later. So did my eyes and skin, and my voice.
[he shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. the tentacles curl idly around his wrist.]
But... no chance of it, yes. Killed with the holy flame of the same Light he always served. [he manages a humorless little breath of what's almost a laugh, there, but it's an ugly thing.] So much for the Light will protect you. He's the one who always cared about it and I'm the one who lived, where was the Light in that?
...I don't presume to know him, Ryn. Nor am I bold enough to claim I could ever understand how it was on the field of battle that day.
[He moves a half-step closer, still keeping his distance, but gravitating into his orbit.]
But I do know what it is, to have someone you love look you in the eyes and still choose sacrifice. I objected. I bargained. I begged. And she told me...
[He swallows.]
She told me, "It is not your decision to make." And neither was Aren's yours. It isn't fair. But it was his choice.
...It takes a certain type of personality, I suppose.
[He edges closer again, expression softening.]
The same one, I imagine, that drives a man to take up a sword and shield. You accept that your place is to stand between those you love and the danger that would befall them. And you take heart from knowing that your efforts are the coin that buys them the gift of a chance.
I've never been one to dream, really. I'm far too much the cynic to have any great visions of a better world. But I've loved those who do, and those who stand to make it a reality by their efforts. So I do as I do because I believe in them.
Then it's different, in his case. I'm not-- he's the one who wanted to try to make the world better, he was better. I never believed all that much in the Light, but he took its tenets seriously, he always... he was twice the healer I was. If one of us was going to survive then it should have been him.
[he's still clinging to the coat wrapped around himself.]
As I recall, you asked me not so very long ago why the one to survive shouldn't be me.
[He nudges closer again; he's well into Rynlan's personal space by now.]
One of the demons asked me once what criteria I thought should go into choosing the attendees for this upcoming party we've been promised. What traits would make a deserving recipient. I told them I wouldn't choose even if I could. Because delving into notions of deciding who deserves to live and who doesn't will only lead to madness.
He didn't do it because you were more deserving than him. He wanted you to live. And whether that decision was noble or selfish or right or wrong — it was his, and he made it out of love.
[he starts to speak, but cuts himself off, frustrated. reaches out to grab the front of thancred's shirt, hand fisting into the material, but-- he doesn't push him away. he doesn't make any more contact, either, just... holds there.]
...you'd hate being a healer, you know. [a little quieter.] Both of us knew-- we had to learn, early on, what it meant to save as many people as you could. Triage. Managing resources. Losing some to save others. There's never... there are no miracles, in war, you never get to save everyone. We knew.
[Oh. When, Thancred can't help but wonder, was the last time he'd been held onto like this? Has he ever?]
I would make a terrible healer. With no ability to use aether? I'd be worse than useless.
[Carefully, with slow movements, he reaches one of his hands up and covers over Ryn's where it's still twisted into his shirt.]
Maybe it should have been you. He was more noble than you. Stronger than you. More of an asset than you. Any medic doing triage would have saved him at the expense of you. A just world would've valued him, and relinquished you.
[His hand tightens, just slightly.]
But none of that matters. He wanted you to live; isn't that enough?
It's a thought exercise, Thancred, suspend a little disbelief.
[he manages a half smile with that, brief as it is. honestly, roll with him here.
when thancred's hand covers his, he doesn't shy from the touch-- it seems to ease a little tension, after a moment. rynlan denies it, often turns down offered contact, but maybe he's a little starved for it. a little bit.
and as for what he says-- honestly, in a fucked up little way he's wanted to hear this for years. to not be told he's wrong. to be acknowledged in his thoughts, rational or not, and then told it didn't matter.
the breath he takes in shakes, slightly.]
It was hard. I didn't want to. If I had it in me to resent him for making me live I just might've.
Very well, I would be an unthinkably terrible healer.
[The half-smile is worth it. Sue him for gunning for a full one.]
...For what it's worth, I think you do resent him. Not for making you live, but for leaving you. It just feels wrong to be angry — it feels ungrateful. He gave his life for you; what a miserable fraction of a creature you would have to be, to resent him after that.
But you know it was cruel of him. Because you do have it in you to resent me when I suggest I might do the very same thing.
[He squeezes his hand again, gently.]
We were never down here, Ryn, and I never saw this. No one to hear or know, if you did let yourself admit it.
...sometimes it feels, [he starts off, quiet,] like he didn't think about me at all when he did it. I don't have family left. Our friends were-- mostly his at the time. He met me at my lowest and dragged me up out of it, he knows I wouldn't have made it if he weren't there, what-- why did he think I would want to live alone? Did he not realize what would happen after he was gone?
[he clings a little tighter, there, knuckles white, but he refuses to step closer.]
...How often did he chide you for thinking too much? I suspect he did.
[Another step closer; they're nearly toe to toe by now, which is more than a little comical given the discrepancy in their heights. More's the pity, really; it would be nice to gather Ryn in and tuck his head against his shoulder and hold him, but it's just not feasible for a lot of different reasons.]
Mayhap there's no making sense of it, no matter how hard you try, or how much you might want to. It's all right to miss him. If you want to just...let yourself miss him.
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He almost looks away, except that looking away won't help. The sounds will still be there. To say nothing of the fact that this is hell, and more likely than not the images would just project onto the backs of his eyelids even if he did try to close them, because cruelty is the point. It could only be the point, of a moment like this.
So he looks. Sees how strikingly beautiful Rynlan was before whatever corruption took him; understands with new poignancy why he hates mirrors so much, why the person reflected in them is wrong, wrong, always wrong. He sees the ripping talons catch his leg and already knows that it will be lost, that a prosthetic will be needed in place of whatever wreckage of a limb they might leave behind — if they leave anything behind at all.
He sees the paladin. He's wearing armor. It doesn't disguise the knowledge that somewhere on him, there's a ring.
He watches, because this is hell, and as the Rynlan in the projection begins to howl he picks up a chair and smashes it into the screen in a single rapid and unbroken movement, hard enough to crush a hole into the center and send spiderweb cracks skittering all throughout the rest.
It's impossible to say whether it's his percussive maintenance or the natural end of the memory that stops it. This is hell, so likely it's the latter. But it was worth it to attempt the former anyway.]
...Ryn.
[He wavers, just on that syllable. Unsure what to say. Don't comment. Don't draw attention. Don't leave him feeling exposed.]
Rynlan. I didn't see this. We were never here.
no subject
he expects-- he doesn't know. sympathy. pity. he doesn't expect what thancred actually offers, attention snapping to him, eyes slightly wide behind his glasses.]
You-
[whatever he means to say dies in his throat, choked, and he shakes his head.]
no subject
[It's patient, the way the words leave his mouth. Steady. Coaxing. And he knows better than to think Ryn wants to be touched right now, not with his body language screaming loud and clear to stay away, to keep distance, but —
But what good is a promise like I'll protect you against something like this? Nothing. Because there's nothing he can position himself between, nothing he can fight. Not when it's this.
He wants to reach for him. It's a motion that makes it only a few ilms before it falls short, and he takes his hand back, bringing it back down again to his side.]
I won't look at you if you don't want me to.
no subject
he promises, effectively, to forget he's seen this, that rynlan was exposed at all, and it's that exact sort of understanding that makes him a little more willing to speak of his own accord.]
...I didn't say anything about him, before. His name was Aren. Knew each other for a couple of decades.
[it's a little bit of an invitation, a concession to the memory. a sign he's at least somewhat willing to talk about it.]
no subject
An embrace that involves no touch whatsoever.]
How long is a few decades, for you and yours? 'Tis a different reckoning of time, isn't it?
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eventually he does take the coat, draping it around himself. rynlan may be taller, but while it's short on him it's still oversized in every other way, given that he's entirely too thin.]
It isn't long. I'm an adult, by our standards, but still on the young end. [and that's at 145 or so.] But it felt longer, with everything that happened in those years.
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You were at war? With...voidsent, it looked like.
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[his ears both twitch, reflexive.]
Their king and his army invaded our lands. Plagued the southern half of our territory so badly we still haven't cleansed it. Killed the majority of our population. That place-- it's their territory.
[where they took the fight to them-- everyone, not only the elves. there were only three in the unit in his memory, the rest composed of various races.]
Those vials... we had to burn every body that we could so that they couldn't reanimate them, but it's hard to get a fire going in Icecrown.
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[ He hesitates, debating with himself a minute before venturing carefully: ]
But Aren used his to take that mob with him. He was still...
[Alive. When it snapped. Gods.]
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[it was just to save ryn, to try to buy him more time.]
We didn't, technically, but our backup arrived just in time to revive me.
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[And so many things are snapping into such terrible clarity now. Why a statement like if I get you out then I've done my job well would provoke such a vehement and furious reaction. Why I've made my peace with it would be so abrasive and heartrending.]
Was that what changed your hair, the revival?
[It's so much more than just hair, but he's still being careful about don't remark on my appearance, so this is likely the safest bet he can employ.]
no subject
[he shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. the tentacles curl idly around his wrist.]
But... no chance of it, yes. Killed with the holy flame of the same Light he always served. [he manages a humorless little breath of what's almost a laugh, there, but it's an ugly thing.] So much for the Light will protect you. He's the one who always cared about it and I'm the one who lived, where was the Light in that?
no subject
[He moves a half-step closer, still keeping his distance, but gravitating into his orbit.]
But I do know what it is, to have someone you love look you in the eyes and still choose sacrifice. I objected. I bargained. I begged. And she told me...
[He swallows.]
She told me, "It is not your decision to make." And neither was Aren's yours. It isn't fair. But it was his choice.
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[he manages that first, in disbelief, shaking his head before he finds the rest of his words.]
How can you have gone through that and still want to do it to others, Thancred, I don't understand it.
[thancred's allowed to shift closer; he doesn't back away.]
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[He edges closer again, expression softening.]
The same one, I imagine, that drives a man to take up a sword and shield. You accept that your place is to stand between those you love and the danger that would befall them. And you take heart from knowing that your efforts are the coin that buys them the gift of a chance.
I've never been one to dream, really. I'm far too much the cynic to have any great visions of a better world. But I've loved those who do, and those who stand to make it a reality by their efforts. So I do as I do because I believe in them.
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[he's still clinging to the coat wrapped around himself.]
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[He nudges closer again; he's well into Rynlan's personal space by now.]
One of the demons asked me once what criteria I thought should go into choosing the attendees for this upcoming party we've been promised. What traits would make a deserving recipient. I told them I wouldn't choose even if I could. Because delving into notions of deciding who deserves to live and who doesn't will only lead to madness.
He didn't do it because you were more deserving than him. He wanted you to live. And whether that decision was noble or selfish or right or wrong — it was his, and he made it out of love.
no subject
[he starts to speak, but cuts himself off, frustrated. reaches out to grab the front of thancred's shirt, hand fisting into the material, but-- he doesn't push him away. he doesn't make any more contact, either, just... holds there.]
...you'd hate being a healer, you know. [a little quieter.] Both of us knew-- we had to learn, early on, what it meant to save as many people as you could. Triage. Managing resources. Losing some to save others. There's never... there are no miracles, in war, you never get to save everyone. We knew.
He was always worse at it.
no subject
I would make a terrible healer. With no ability to use aether? I'd be worse than useless.
[Carefully, with slow movements, he reaches one of his hands up and covers over Ryn's where it's still twisted into his shirt.]
Maybe it should have been you. He was more noble than you. Stronger than you. More of an asset than you. Any medic doing triage would have saved him at the expense of you. A just world would've valued him, and relinquished you.
[His hand tightens, just slightly.]
But none of that matters. He wanted you to live; isn't that enough?
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[he manages a half smile with that, brief as it is. honestly, roll with him here.
when thancred's hand covers his, he doesn't shy from the touch-- it seems to ease a little tension, after a moment. rynlan denies it, often turns down offered contact, but maybe he's a little starved for it. a little bit.
and as for what he says-- honestly, in a fucked up little way he's wanted to hear this for years. to not be told he's wrong. to be acknowledged in his thoughts, rational or not, and then told it didn't matter.
the breath he takes in shakes, slightly.]
It was hard. I didn't want to. If I had it in me to resent him for making me live I just might've.
[but he didn't. he couldn't. not him.]
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[The half-smile is worth it. Sue him for gunning for a full one.]
...For what it's worth, I think you do resent him. Not for making you live, but for leaving you. It just feels wrong to be angry — it feels ungrateful. He gave his life for you; what a miserable fraction of a creature you would have to be, to resent him after that.
But you know it was cruel of him. Because you do have it in you to resent me when I suggest I might do the very same thing.
[He squeezes his hand again, gently.]
We were never down here, Ryn, and I never saw this. No one to hear or know, if you did let yourself admit it.
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[he clings a little tighter, there, knuckles white, but he refuses to step closer.]
Here I am, dead before 150 anyway.
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[Another step closer; they're nearly toe to toe by now, which is more than a little comical given the discrepancy in their heights. More's the pity, really; it would be nice to gather Ryn in and tuck his head against his shoulder and hold him, but it's just not feasible for a lot of different reasons.]
Mayhap there's no making sense of it, no matter how hard you try, or how much you might want to. It's all right to miss him. If you want to just...let yourself miss him.