Ekkehardt Gehring (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spelleton) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
datadiving2019-03-15 12:09 am
spelleton) wrote in datadiving2019-03-15 12:09 am
spelleton) wrote in datadiving2019-03-15 12:09 am
/uses prince icon because apparently i need to draw a serious surprise one
Yeah.
Yeah, that.
[He sounds like a fool. Very erudite, Avery. Super expressive. Good job.
He eyes Ekkehardt for a moment, then snatches up a somewhat thick branch, breaking it in half over a knee. ]
This is probably too thin to work.
[He sounds almost distracted, playful tone vanished]
Pretty sure the posts are supposed to be more like logs, right?
[He tosses the broken branch up into the air, letting it spin once and catching it. Once. Twice. The third time it hits him in the head.
He curses under his breath, rubbing the spot, an eye trained on Ekkehardt.
He waits--hopes--for dry mockery to follow]
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Even that faint spark of hope is enough to wake something else in him.
Normally, cognition is a matter of chance; the swirling chaos inside his form occasionally jolting him from his stasis. The pain is always too much to bear, and it consumes his mind once again.
This time --
-- well, no, it still hurts. Every second is excruciating, even more so when he's conscious enough to really feel it. But he anchors himself by that spark, because it's something he hasn't seen in some time.
(In a way he's always oriented himself by those who shone b̴̸r̸i̧͟g̴̷͡h̨t͡ę̷r͏ ̵ţ҉h̸a̸̧͟n͘͞ ́͟h̢͜im͢ -- but those memories of a time he can't return to are too painful and almost drag him under again.)
He breathes a little, the sound rattling and awful, and tries to focus on what's in front of him. It can't be that hard
"You always say things are easy, Avery."
"Is it really--my fault if--" ]
St--stupid.
[ His voice is rusty and pained; it drags like the chains that wrap his form. But it's there, all the same.
The memories hurt. Every second is painful. But he clings to it anyway. ]
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You...
[It worked. He actually...
No. No, he can think about this later. Right now he needs to take this moment of clarity and milk it for all it's worth.]
[Avery stands straight and folds his arms under his tattered cloak, rolling his eyes.]
Oh, sorry. I didn't know I was talking with the world's foremost authority on fences.
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[ He makes another awful sound, frustrated and painful. ]
--nnot. What I meant-tt.
[ For once that stare he's given Avery so many times is focused (struggling to stay focused, pupils growing fever bright and fading again and brightening, cycling in and out) and not blank with agony.
Something like a laugh comes out. Broken and mingled with the sound of straining metal. ]
You. H-hh. Hh-haven't-t. C-changed at all.
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I wouldn't say that. I could make myself taller than you now if I wanted to.
I've picked up a few tricks.
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[ He does. Somewhere.
Everything is such a blur, but he can pick out certain things; he knows, intrinsically, that Avery is different and not human any more, just as the contract that had transformed him had made something new out of his remains and bound his soul inside.
Perhaps if his death had not been for such a specific reason, he would have resented it, or been angered by it. But he's devoid of the hatred that might usually come with someone who was dragged out of death and into a new, pain-filled existence. ]
...Y..y-you're...t-the same h-hh...height. As you w-were...before.
[ He leans down. There's the impression he might be squinting. ]
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If you make a single short joke, I'm taping a "kick me" sign to that mask of yours.
[He doesn't change, however. Not until he's sure that this is going to stick. Until he's sure this isn't some dream he's having or something else in his life that's about to be ripped away from him.]
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Y-you can...t-try.
[ He withdraws again, but it's clearly to keep his mask out of easy reach, rather than the instinctive keep-away he's played in Avery's shadow all this time. (There had been kind of a shame in how he had slunk away, like he had understood the days when his friend couldn't bear to look at him.) ]
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How's this for a try, Stretch? Maybe I'll add a few bows for decoration.
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S-st..ill no s-sign, t-t..though.
I h...h-have a name.
[ If it wasn't for the stuttering and the clear effort he's exerting, he'd almost sound like his old self.
But that last phrase is almost a question; it wavers in a way that his other words have not. It seems to distract him from the present.
(His name, like many other things, is something he has tried and failed many times to grasp. But it's slipped away from him like it's evading him, and so he gave up on it in his exhaustion, and gave up another piece of himself.
Names have power. The power to seal a contract, to complete someone's being, to be the last or first step in someone's creation.
He had been far closer to death, and so a daemon whose face he cannot remember had come to him first; when he refused to say his name, even to save himself, they had laughed.
The thing born out of his remains had his memories and everything that mattered, was a cage for his soul, but he had never given his name and so he had been transformed without his memory of it, as one last trick.) ]
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That wasn't a statement. Not as much as he wanted it to be. He remembers how Ekkehardt never gave a name, remembers how he had taken note and kept it a secret as well. Now there's a part of him that wishes he hadn't. Maybe if he had...]
That so? What was it again...? Tall, dark, and annoying? Nosy? Busybody?
[He laughs, but it's not a genuine one. Not quite.]
Wow, Ekkehardt, you really want to give me that much power here?
Oh! I know! Let's go with... Jerk. Simple, short, and snappy!
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Not because being called those things doesn't feel right or familiar (because they feel acerbically, comfortably familiar, feelings from a place he cannot access, because his memories were hidden but his emotions were not), but because one of them is a key to the rest of him. He's not complete without it.
It wouldn't work at any other time before this. He would have torn himself apart in the strain, or irreversibly broken; yet another cruelty, yet another trick. He was brought back, like the contract had asked for, but in fragmented pieces rather than any coherent whole. Forced to assemble himself like an unsolved puzzle.
Compared to all his other changes, painful and slow, this unlocking is so much quicker. He'd been straining to remember who he was before this, to master himself on top of his own agony; everything seems so much clearer now. ]
You remembered all those other ones before my actual name?
[ He's on the branch in an instant, now just as fast, but the second before he actually touches it, he changes, and now he has absolutely no hope of matching Avery's height right now.
It's not exactly the same; he can't be as he was. But it's very similar, and very familiar. ]
I don't know why I expected anything else.
[ Ekkehardt crosses his arms and stares and if not for everything else that's changed, it could almost be something approaching normal. ]
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Heh. Maybe they just seemed to fit better.
[His voice is rough, a crack and a showing of weakness that might have been unacceptable if it weren't for the near-overwhelming tidal wave of relief washing over him.]
... Took you long enough.
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He can manage. He'll manage.
He might have said insufferable as ever but it doesn't feel right, so he settles for something else. ]
I will admit I was, perhaps, a little slow.
[ And more hastily, like he's trying not to overcomplicate or overthink the words or make them more formal to suit himself: ]
I'm-- sorry.
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Don't be. It's not like it was actually your fault. And... you were still there, I guess. Making sure no one who wandered in here got too high and mighty.
[keeping watch as he always did.]
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[ The words are too heavy, maybe - but they come out before he can stop them, because Avery isn't the only one who feels guilty.
He could try to laugh it off, but he's never quite had the talent for it. Too serious, too straightlaced in his own way - though he'd gone along with Avery's bad ideas more than once, even if it was just to keep him out of trouble, because he was one of the two people in his life that could have ever convinced him to do things that nobody else could get away with.
But those days are gone and past and all of them have changed too much to ever go back.
He sits, and doesn't look at him. ]
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[It seems harsh, even to him, and so Avery frowns and continues on.]
You didn't even react when I gave you pigtails that one time.
[Whether or not he really did so and when, he's not telling.]
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He remembers everything past his revival as a jumbled mess of light and sound, but sorrow and guilt; that had been clear. He hadn't been entirely clear whether it was his own, or Avery's, and that told a story all by itself. ]
Surely you had better things to stave off your boredom. [ His voice is a bit dry (even if he has to force it). Pigtails, really? ]
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Probably. But I wanted to see if you still looked creepy with them. Turns out the answer was yes.
[He snickers]
It was still pretty funny.
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(It had been a party trick, something he did for effect or for his own amusement, when he was alive. For scaring people, because he wasn't above that.
It's part of him, now. He doesn't know what to think.) ]
Well, at least your sense of humor hasn't changed. Still as questionable as ever.
[ He can't quite keep the fondness out of his voice, though. ]
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And maybe if he jokes enough it'll become a little less real, a little less painful. Something normal, background noise in this strange, new existence.]
And what about you? Coming out of your silence after all these years to call me stupid?
[There's clear, genuine amusement there. Honestly, he couldn't think of anything more fitting.]
You're just as uptight as I am hilarious.
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(He'd already suspected, but it's one thing to suspect and another thing to confirm it.)
Since they're already pretending anyway, he speaks normally and pretends it didn't happen. ]
What else was I supposed to call you, hmm?
I can't very well call you a genius for hitting yourself on the head. That would just be rewarding you for idiotic behaviour.
[ Like he hasn't technically rewarded him already..... ]
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He's heard those screams. Can hear them now if he closes his eyes and thinks about the things he doesn't want to remember.]
Accidents happen, Ekke. Even geniuses make mistakes.
[especially the planned ones.]
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Even without his mind operating in any sort of functioning state, some kind of tiny pilot light of what was probably consideration had driven him away, like an animal instinctively driven to hide and lick its wounds.
The screams had echoed, despite his best efforts. ]
As you've told me before, repeatedly. [ He shakes his head with a sigh. ]
I don't know why I kept going along with all your terrible ideas. I think that just encouraged you to be more reckless.
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[He was grateful he hadn't. Avery had had to be dragged to safety out of more than a few of his more hare brained schemes.]
Especially when I sent stuff from school. You never had to send anything back.
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