closed 🪶 i'm in the end, just what you made me.

[garudas]

Who: Benedikta Harman & others.
Status: Closed.
Where: Around.
What: Catch-all log for November.
Warnings: FFXVI spoilers. Definitely lots of foul language.

[If you would like a closed starter, please feel free to poke me over at my plotting post and we can plot something! 💚]

Comments

[garudas]

[She doesn't even look at him when he stands, but her shoulders do stiffen at the sound of his voice.]

Because of you and your Branded...

[Clive Rosfield.

That boy who he would still shelter even after what he had done. She's not sure she will ever forgive either of them for that.]

And what does that matter here?

[Now she turns to him, his anger only working to make her own rise.]

What does your concern matter here? I do not need anyone's pity, or worry. Unlike you and the rest of your little crew, I can take care of myself.

[ramuhs]

[He just stares at her incredulously.

How can it not matter?

Did anything they talked about before mean anything to her? No, he's sure it did, but she's doing her damn, annoying thing where she tries to push him away and use that brittle glass shield to protect herself. A part of him understands—he does. At the same time, just as she hates his "hero" side, he hates this part of her. Where she continues to bite and bite and bite the hand trying to help her and then pretending it's all that hand's fault instead of her own.

He knew this would be difficult, that she would be a wall, but it was about time he took a damn sledgehammer and cracked it wide open.]

If you can take care of yourself so damn well, then you don't need me.

[Just a hardened glare, knowing how sharp his words are. Don't let her go, she says, she needs him, he says, but then what does she do?]

Don't care about you, don't worry about you, don't help—if I can't do anything then what's the point?

[garudas]

["You don't need me."

Those words twist in her like a hot knife, and she does flinch then. If he knew... if only he knew what it is that she needs, and if only he knew how much. If only he knew how much she hated that she does. If only he knew how difficult it was for her to tell him.

Her hands ball into fists at her side, resisting the urge to whip one around and slap him with it. To bite that hand that reaches out for her because he doesn't understand. He could never understand...

He is far too good for that. Too good and too caring and too goddamn good at it to know what it is she's feeling. Where she thinks only of herself and of saving her own skin, he thinks of others first. She worries herself over him and for what!? For him to turn around and worry for her instead? She isn't so weak anymore that she needs a hand to help her get to her feet when she didn't ask for it, and the one time that she had tried to find that hand...

...]

No, maybe I don't need you.

[The words slip out of her before she can stop them, through gritted teeth and a lip caught between them that begins to swell with blood.]

What then? What do you want from me then?

[ramuhs]

[Her words twist that old wound that has yet to fully heal. Brings back the doubts of whether this will all collapse in the end. That he really is fighting a pointless battle and that it would be better off she just hated him completely and he moved on with his life.

But of course, he can't do that.

Not so easily anymore, anyway.

Not after all they've gone through so far, the steps they've made.]

An actual relationship, Benedikta. And that's only going to happen if you make up your goddamn mind on what you want from me and be honest about it.

You cannot be making your demands and then get pissed off when I make the same of you. That's not how it works, and you know it.

[garudas]

[A relationship... An actual relationship, as if he ever had a right to ask for such a thing. As if either of them has a right to one with each other.

They had that. They had something then and they both let it slip through their fingers and watched it burn, and now all that is left is... this. This back and forth, this push and pull, this tangled mess of a storm that they have been weathering since they got here. A love and hate that neither of them can shake, and when one rears its head, so too does the other, and it comes for them, fangs bared.

Just like it is now.

He still doesn't get it. Still doesn't understand why she makes these demands.

She'd lost Garuda. Her life. Her power. Her king. Her own sense of self that she is still trying to grapple back into her hands if she could just find it.]

I've already told you!

[Her voice rises a moment to hide the wavering underneath.]

If I lost you, I—

[More words that spill from her lips in a single breath, and she wishes she could reach into the air and steal them back before they can reach him.]

[ramuhs]

You what, Benedikta!?

[He doesn't mean to raise his voice, but he's tired of how she starts and then stops, expecting—]

You've never told me anything, and I've been trying my damnedest to figure you out, but I'm not a mind reader! Especially when you say one thing and then do the complete opposite the next!

[Sometimes his guesses are right, but even then it's always so tenuous or not enough. And he can't keep working off guesses and assumptions when they could be completely wrong.

Which has happened already, for the both of them. Which is why he's been pushing for more clarity this time so they won't make the same mistake twice. Of course he knows she will never tell him everything, but she has to give something. He can't carry this alone.]

[garudas]

[She what? What does she want? What doesn't she want? She has always been so good at taking what she wanted with force before, so why is it so much harder now? Why is it so goddamn hard to just seize it for herself?

No, she knows why. Because he's a stubborn, valiant, noble man who soaks up every ray of sun that shines upon him. Because he is kind and loves with all of his being—he loves too much. Loves her too much. And what is she if not merely a shadow beneath him? A bottomless pit that could swallow the light.

Telling him would only lead them in circles, as it has already. Begging for him to stop being that valiant, noble man who loves others far too much will bring her nothing. He is as much an unmoving force in his position as she is in hers.

More than that, if he knew what she wanted from him, if he knew what she wished for, he and all the rest of the world would see her as weak. He should leave her, hate her just as much as she still hates him, and yet she still begs for him to stay. No matter how many touches they exchange, no matter how many tender words he whispers into her ears...

...

She doesn't deserve it.

So no, she can't simply tell him what she wants because—]

I am scared, Cidolfus!

[Fuck.]

[garudas]

[Benedikta has certainly seen better days, but even before the sudden goose attack, she'd been much more worse for wear than normal. Mostly within her eyes, less sharp than they used to be, with darkened circles beneath them. Now, though, her hair is a dishevelled mess thanks to the goose, her sword hangs precariously from its sheath on her waist, and her clothes could use some straightening. Needless to say...]

I am fine.

[... she doesn't look very fine.

Stubbornly, she smooths out her shirt with one hand and her hair in the other without so much as a word of gratitude to her... saviour. Ugh.

And she whirls her gaze around to the crowd of people standing around, and then back to Jill.]

Whose bird is this anyway!?

[ramuhs]

[He knew it.

He's always known it, since the first time she let it slip back on the Stormbringer in that cabin.

It's impossible for him not to have recognized it even without it.

However, how he understood that fear was different than what she's saying now. Before, clearly she was scared for her survival, of Barnabas. Now?]

Of what?

[There's less anger and now it's more of a desperate pleading as he steps over to her.]

You keep telling me I don't understand—so tell me so I can at least try!

[She's scared, he knows that. But what is it exactly. Is it being with him? If it is, why? Is she scared of losing him? That's natural, no need to question that, but is it more than that? What exactly is he to her. Is there something else she's afraid of that's holding her back? All of it? Something else completely?

He doesn't know. He can't even begin to guess which it is and all of them require something different, which he can't do if he doesn't know.]

[garudas]

[He steps to her, and she steps away, though not far. A single step, easy for him to close the distance in a single stride if he tried to.

Of what, he asks, as if it were that easy. Of what...? Of being hurt again. Of being left behind. Of being hated. Of being seen as weak. Of losing control.

So, so many things that she cannot even begin to explain to him in a way that he would understand. She had been afraid before, yes, but this is different. Before, she feared for her own life, her own skin, and thought nothing more than of her own survival with Barnabas's blade pressed precariously to her throat, ready to draw blood the moment she had wronged him.

Now, the worst part of it is that this is not about her own life. And while she has new things to fear, like the rifts swallowing her whole and flinging her back into the aether without a word of warning, it's only deepened by something else. Something that she has not known or felt, or perhaps she never knew how strongly she felt it, until she saw him in the gallows.

But how much more can she lie about it? How much more can she pretend that she isn't? Pushing him away felt easier simply because it would take away that expectation of being hurt and left behind again, but now... Now that she truly has nothing left...

...]

You will see me differently if I do.

[ramuhs]

[He will keep closing that distance, but he will keep some. Just a step. Just within arm's reach so that if he has to grab her he will. He is only allowing her that space because he knows she needs it, but at the same time he's often left wondering if she'd rather him force to close that gap. Always this line...

...

And her words make his face crumple. Of all the things—]

Benedikta.

[And hand lifts, wanting to reach out to her, but he clenches those fingers in forced restraint.]

What could possibly be worse than what we've already done to each other?

[They already thought the worst of each other at least once. Him, especially, when she stopped answering his calls, stopped meeting him, stopped listening to him. Watched her disappearing down that certain corridor. Saw her become a shell of her former self. At least to him, that's already hitting the lowest she could possibly get, yet here he is, still standing in front of her. So what is it that she's valuing that could be more than that?]

[garudas]

[She knows what it is he refers to—every little bit of their painful past, their last days together when she pretended and convinced herself that everything was fine when it wasn't. She still remembers that last night on his balcony where they shared their last cigar together.

That night would forever be her biggest regret...]

Everything.

[Her voice is quiet. Too quiet and too even. She wants to scream at him, but she can't even bring herself to do that anymore. She wants to slap him, but what good will that do? It would bring her no satisfaction, or pride. It would only leave her feeling more hollow than she already does.

He thinks that those years were their lowest points, but Benedikta disagrees. This is her lowest point. The point where she truly feels like she has nothing left... and if she opens her mouth and spills it all to him, that very last thread of who she is will be gone.

A silence hangs over them now, and Benedikta tries her damnest to quiet Garuda who shrieks in her ears. Weak, weak, weak...]

[ramuhs]

[He stands there, staring at her, that debate of whether to just let her be or force it out of her. But he can feel it—this is it. Not all of it, but this is a key piece that they need to get out if they are to get anywhere.

If she is to get anywhere.]

That's for me to decide.

[Another reference to something she's been doing all this time—trying to make his own decisions, making assumptions of what he will or will not do. Using her own perceptions to believe one thing when it's the opposite.]

Let's not make the same mistake we did before.

[It's now that he'll reach out and take her hand, and will tighten it if she tries to draw back.]

Talk to me. Please.

[garudas]

[Weak, weak, weak, she screams, louder and louder until his hand wraps around hers, and she will instinctively pull back, only for the tightening of his fingers to silence that damned harpy when he keeps her from fleeing.

For him to decide, is it?

Even when Benedikta decided a long time ago that he wouldn't want her back. That he would look at her and see the weak-willed girl who hid behind her wings when things became too much. That he would remember how easily she let Barnabas chain her down, and then worse... that he would finally see her for what she is now that she no longer has to wear them. How she still wears them, even when he's gone, because that is all she knows. That is all she's ever known.

Because she is too afraid to step foot outside of that cage into a world she fears... knows will only betray her.

Much like he had.

When she lets herself feel things, that is when she loses control of her life. It all spirals out of her control. Every time.

But she still finds herself unable to let him go. Unable to set him free from her shadows, from within the fangs of her demons, to bask in the sun that longs to shine for him. No, she keeps dragging him out of the light and into the dark.

...Weak...

Her fingers tighten around his.]

...

[But where to start?

She swallows, her mouth and throat bone dry, and she wants so bad to tear off her own skin that no longer feels like her own.

Her lips quiver, but he can't see it.]




I don't know who I am anymore.

[ramuhs]

[He's heard her say this before, and he somewhat understands. She's been following a certain beat, a certain life, certain orders and now it's all been taken out from under her. She's probably realizing she's been standing on a house of cards, and now it's all crumbling with her unable to control it.

It's too much, too fast, and he actually understands a bit. He didn't suffer as much as she did, but he, too, had his whole life and ideals shaken the moment he learned that truth. Questioning, doubting, wondering if what all he did in those past twenty years was worth anything. If it was a waste of his time, his life. But perhaps because he was older, more experienced, and more driven, he was able to turn it around and forge a different path instead of wallowing in hatred and despair.

Now, he has to try and help her do the same. But how? She's so different, and he can't just best it over her head.

Slowly he tightens his hold on her hand.]

Then let's start figuring it out. Who did you think you were? What did you want to be?

[garudas]

[Figuring it out... She would scoff at that if she had the strength to. She has tried that and still ends up back in the same place—a place of power and comfort, where she does not have to worry about falling into the same pitfalls. Only now, she doesn't know where that place is anymore. It was at Barnabas's side, and with him gone, so is that perch, and she is left wondering where to go, beating her wings long after they are tired while she looks for a new one...

She turns her body slightly, and her eyes wander down to where he holds her hand in his.]

I was weak, Cidolfus.

[He had seen her when they first met. Skin and bones, her hair always a tattered, uneven mess, and boundless amounts of aether in her that she could not control. Garuda had been loud then, and she is louder now, as Benedikta slowly feels herself losing her grip on her the longer that she tries to stay in the air and not fall. She did not know then who she wanted, who she even was... They said that she could live her life the way she wanted to, that she was no longer a little slave girl, but...

Her wrists... they ache and burn.

She still is, as Garuda is wont to remind her now.]

And I did not want to be anymore.

[That was it. At the bottom line, that's all that Benedikta wanted. She no longer wanted to be "girl" or "hey you" or the one who would have to endure lashings and yelling when she didn't know what she'd done wrong. But it all taught her a valuable lesson: that power was everything, and if she had power, she had the ability to stand above it all. To never be that wretched, scared little thing again.

...

And yet... his questions give her pause because...]

What is there beyond that?

[ramuhs]

[He lets out a small breath. It's not that he doesn't know or cannot guess why she thinks this way. He was the one who found her, was the one who saw and learned of her past, what she went through. Things he had also seen and was familiar with to some extent.

That desire to not be weak. To be strong enough to survive and stand on one's own feet.]

There is nothing wrong in being stronger. But it's not the only thing.

[A pause as he looks at their hands.]

Ask yourself this: were you ever happy with all that power? Did you ever feel satisfied, fulfilled?

[And the unsaid question: was it really worth all that she sacrificed to get there?]

[garudas]

[At that, her fingers tighten around his, her knuckles nearly turning white.

A heavier silence looms over them, the space filled with a tension that one could easily cut through with a knife, pulled so taut that it could snap at any moment. It doesn't, but Benedikta can feel it, hot like static that, no matter how hard she tries to wipe away, it only clings harder to her.

Because she knows the truth of it. She has since he left her in Waloed and found what that emptiness truly meant. What it was like to go from feeling happy to not, to having everything that she could ever want to having nothing... She knew what it was like to chase just so that she could feel something...

She searched and she searched in those dark blue eyes, and always came up short.

And now, Benedikta realizes...]

... I don't know how to answer that.

[... she doesn't really know what it is like to feel satisfied. Fulfilled. Truly and utterly happy.]

[ramuhs]

Then that's your answer.

[An answer he knew all along... And had tried to stop her from falling into. If she had been happy, if she was actually proud and happy about her life, he would have said much less—even if it was without him. Yet every time he saw her, he could always see it.

It wasn't pride, it was bitterness. It wasn't just arrogance, it was a mask.

If there is no shame, then why do you feel so sorry for yourself!?

Tried over and over...

It only had to be now that she might finally listen. And he can't say he's happy about it, but it's something.]

And you won't find it in just me, either.

[He brushes his thumb over her fingertips.]

I can only offer you a part, however big or small, but if you depend on me too much you'll just fall right back to where you are now. You need to find new things that you like to do, that makes you feel proud to call your own.

And maybe it's doing the same things you have been doing. But this time, you're not acting because you're trying to prove to someone else.

[He slowly moves their hands so it lightly thumps against her chest, over her heart.]

But to yourself.

[She may say that's what she's been doing all along, but her standing here unable to find herself is proof that she hasn't.]

[garudas]

[She's surprised by the gesture, so bold and so forward and so very sure that she might actually believe it... if she opened her heart just a little more. But as it stands, it's shut tight, cowering away from his touch and that softness and pity in his eyes that scares her so, so much. He might feel it under his hand—the way that it beats so relentlessly, afraid and ready to flee the moment he lets her go. But she knows that he won't. Now that he has her, she knows that he will hold on until he's sure that she won't.

But that isn't even the half of it.]

How do I even do that, Cidolfus?

[Her voice trembles as if she might scream at him again, and her eyes zero in on him, searching his face as if she might find an answer there, and instead, she finds something else.]

... I need you.

[He says that she should not depend on him so much. That she will just spiral back into where she is now, lost without her sense of self with no idea what that even means, but she realizes—no, she always knew that without him, there is no ground for her to stand on. No wind under her wings for her to take off and find a way to fly on her own.

He is that wind.

And no matter how much she tries to pretend that she doesn't, that she is strong enough to do it on her own, no matter the pride or the stubbornness or the venom in her heart...

She needs him.

That takes every last bit of strength she has to admit it.]

[ramuhs]

[Although he keeps their hands where they are, he'll reach up with his other one as he steps closer to her, that distance between shortening even more as his other hand reaches up to brush the crook of his finger against her cheek.]

I know. And like I said, I'll help you through it—I won't abandon you. But you also have to let me in...and trust me just a little more.

[Not all the way.

He knows that can't happen yet, just like how he isn't trusting her wholly yet either, so he's not going to ask such a thing. But she's going to need to trust him a little more than she has already, and she needs to be more open with him.]

I can't help you if you keep pushing me away when I try.

[garudas]

[She almost snaps back from his finger on her cheek, too tender and affectionate for her to handle in the moment, but rather than flinch away like she wishes she could, she finds herself leaning into the warmth, however much that single touch could offer her.

She wants to accept it and not push him away, but...

"I won't abandon you," he says like it's another promise he's making to her, and that's when she leans away from his hand, and tries to pull the other one from his. She feels that spike in anger again, remembers what she saw that day at the gallows and how she felt when she did. How that rage and that grief came to a head in that moment before she landed with her talons out, ready to tear the world apart.

And now Garuda is there, and as much as she wanted the Eikon back, she doesn't like this feeling that she could lose control of her at any moment, and history will somehow repeat itself.]

...

But you—

[Her voice rises suddenly, but she stops herself, taking in a sharp inhale.]

You almost did.

[ramuhs]

[He stands there when she pulls back, and he knows very well what she means. Even if it wasn't that, she would have been right to call back to when he did leave her in the past, circumstances aside.

So he just takes a deep breath, his hands falling to his sides.]

...I fucked up there, I know. And I can only say I will be more careful, but you do know that won't be the last time I could be in a dangerous situation. Not even of my own doing.

[He's quick to add that before she gets the wrong idea.]

This world is not much different from what we face in Valisthea. You're not going to ban me from even doing monster hunts, are you?

[garudas]

[And now that his hands are gone from hers, she finds herself immediately wishing that they weren't. But she stands there, mirroring him, her shoulders now stooped with all of the tension settling into the notches of her spine and wings.]

I—

[She almost tells him that yes, she would. She would if she knew that he would listen to her, but she can see the stubbornness in his features, in every wrinkle around his brow and his eyes, and in that downturn of his lips. And maybe a part of her is satisfied that she did, some small piece of Benedikta vindicated that she could still put them there. That it wasn't all smiles and gentle looks with them because she can only handle so much and more than that, that he could feel even the smallest bit the way that she does.

But the rest of her is just angry and frustrated with him because here they go again. Here he goes again not understanding what she wants and making her say it. Making her give her voice to these feelings so that they could wrap around her chest tighter.]

If I lost you again, I... [More yelling, her voice pitching just a little louder, fists tightening at her sides.] I don't know what I would do...!

[For fuck's sake, why doesn't he get it yet!?]

[garudas]

[Through all of her struggles, Benedikta's ears sharpen and zero in on one single thing.

...!?

And that is the Prince's voice cussing out an eight-headed goose.

She stares over the creature's many heads at him, her eyes wide as if she cannot believe what she's just heard—because she can't. Never, in a million years, would she have imagined that she'd hear "fuck" come out of his mouth. Always so prim and proper...

Her surprise is cut short when a goose pecks at her first, pulling on a strand of her hair, before she feels a small surge of aether in the air, and the bird's belly and several of its heads have gone crispy, the feathers seared right off its body.

She stares down at the goose, then back up at him because—]

Did I just hear what I think I heard?

[She'd laugh, and there is a small glint of amusement in her eye before one of the non-burnt heads waves her sword around, clumsily of course, because it's in shock, and that gives Benedikta the chance to grab it and wrestle it back.]