relinquishing | [Written / ANON]

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[Written / ANON] - 001 ☼

[To wake up in the middle of the night wasn't the issue at all. His sleep hadn't been restful at all, considering what their travelling party was getting ready to do once the sun had risen. Even after all this time, having to fight Van was a tricky thing to try and think about.

But when he opens his eyes to the sounds of woods, the crackle of leaves and branches and rushing of water, he instantly knows something is wrong. The air against the bare skin of his chest is confusing enough, but it's the ache against his shoulders that makes this seem... familiar.

Too familiar.

Memories of months that he didn't even know existed were flowing back, all muddled and cloudy and hard to make out without giving himself a headache. He knew... he knew he had been here before. He knew this was Luceti. He knew he wasn't the first Guy Cecil to have been here.

And he knew Luke had been here as well. A flash of swords, of red hair, of split blood...

Luke lying in the grass, engulfed in a golden light, a dark-haired girl weeping at his side.

Guy jolts up, nearly tripping over the pile that contained his clothes. Without a light source, the only resort he is left to is fumbling around for what's on the ground, doing his best to change from his garments and look for the one item that he needed the most: his journal.

It's as he's groping for his other boot that he finds it, and he quickly pulls his footwear on before wandering to find an adequate light source. He had to send a message.]

PRIVATE - LOCKED TO Luke fon Fabre (!FAILED!)

Luke. It's Guy. If you're awake, I need to talk to you.

[...Wait.

Failed?

Guy can feel his heart pound in his neck. Next best thing - the girl that was, more or less, attached to Luke at the hip.]

PRIVATE - LOCKED TO Xion (!FAILED!)

Xion, it's Guy - Guy Cecil. Hey, I know it's late, but I need to know where you and Luke are.

[...

Failed.

He slams the book shut, jaw tight with fingers pressed firmly to the bridge of his nose. It was too late and his memories are too much of a mess. Had they still been here? He could have sworn... But the idea of Luke having never come back fro that previous memory is enough to make him sick. There was already plenty of suspicion for the Luke he remembered back home. For this one, who he'd watched vanish into thin air---

Screw that. Forget about asking around. Something had happened while he was gone. Perhaps too much. So he presses forward through the muddy ground, trying to find the river he knows he hears, all the while prepping his journal for another set of writing.

He'll just... start with the basics. There wasn't any need to lose his cool just yet.

Right.

...]

[Even with the sun already set, this author doesn't intend to be seen at all. The camera is intentionally covered as the text slowly appears on the journal's page.

First comes a foreign script, written hastily in a language that the writer knows only a handful of people will be able to understand. Whether they respond is a different matter.]

[Underneath it, another message, this time in the more common tongue. Might as well play dumb until he knows exactly what's going here. His mind is a little too muddled to try anything else, anyway.]

I guess we'll start with some basic questions -

Is anyone else here?

What year is it?

What direction is civilization from the river?

And what should someone be expecting to see in the woods this late at night? Can't really say I'm in the mood to get pounced on.

((ooc: For Abyss Cast's convenience: Anyone from Auldrant: Age, rank, background, really just your name will do. Respond if you can.))

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What do yo

[He doesn't get time to finish writing that sentence before he sees the filter go up, and then hears the familiar voice. In turn, he responds by voice as well, though the voice may not be very familiar for Guy -- it's still recognizable as Ion, but is a tad deeper and more mature.]

Guy! I was wondering who this could have been.

[He tilts the journal up so he's in the camera too. He looks older too. His biggest growth spurt was in the time Guy was gone, after all.]

But why the charade?

Hah hah. Nothing too serious, I promise. Just call it a precaution.

[Circumstances were a bit intense the last time he'd been around and all.]

Really, though, I didn't mean to worry you. Adjusting just isn't as easy I remember.

[As it is, Ion's mind isn't anywhere near those particular circumstances, if only because he's not immediately sure "which" Guy he's talking to. Even knowing they were still technically the same person, it was difficult at times to really think of them as such.]

I don't think worry is quite the right word for it... [Irritated might be better. But he just brushes it off with a chuckle.] Does that mean you remember your previous stay here?

[Wow, that's mean. He'd be doomed if he didn't have some sense of humor.]

Well, if I see a bear, I'll make sure to let it know it's being watched out for.

[Still sticking to writing, mystery girl. Sorry. Although... The orange hair looks vaguely familiar.]

There's plenty of trees, just not much else. If the river branches, though, there's got to be a fork somewhere.

Unless my guide would like to take a shot at the stars.

[There's a long break between responses, there, mostly because Asch's knee-jerk reaction was to throw the journal at the opposite wall and leave it lying there as he glowers at it from his desk, trying to decide whether or not he wants to bother retrieving it. It's so obvious now that it pisses him off that he didn't realize it before; there's only one person who'd left while he was blind, who would come back and not reveal himself, who would know to ask that-

And the burning question in his mind, the one that is wavering halfway between terror and rage is simply this: which one is it?

It doesn't seem like the Guy who had nearly cleaved him in two, who had confronted him when he was blind and recovering in the clinic, who'd vanished shortly after murdering him. But it isn't much like the one he knew, the one he'd spent years getting to know, who'd cared for him as much as hated him, because apparently that feeling never truly faded. He's not sure which one's better.

He's not sure which one's worse.

Eventually he slides off his chair and moves to crouch beside the journal, turning it around again to glare at it more directly. The words stare back at him, mockingly, the language of the world he can never return to.

For Guy to say that - to congratulate him for being alive - means that he's aware that Asch has died. Maybe here. Maybe back in Auldrant. Maybe both. The chances are fifty-fifty, at this point.

He doesn't much like those odds.

But he's not a coward, either.]

It's been more than a year, by this world's calendar.

Hmm...? Yeah, I do. Can't say any of those memories are crystal clear or anything, but they're there.

[Just don't ask him to pick anything super specific out right now, lest his head explode or something equally unpleasant.]

It's been a while, though, hasn't it? It was still the 5th cycle year, last I remember.

Yes, at least a year now. In fact, I believe it was around this time of year when you went home the last time as well.

[Or when one of Guys went home, at least.]

I'm sure your other memories of Luceti should come back eventually, but you shouldn't worry about pushing them now. You've only just arrived after all, right?

You're still here.

[...]

Nothing's changed, then, has it?

[The fact that he remembered the blindness, that he's been here for that long, means that this is the Asch that Guy had confronted in the clinic. This is the Asch who'd looked like nothing short of a kicked puppy the last time they'd even tried to speak, who'd thrown himself in front of Luke as...

As...

As what? What had happened?

He doesn't bother lifting the anonymity, but he's pretty sure that the God-General no longer has to play the guessing game. He's... also pretty sure that Asch is going to want nothing to do with him in the next five minutes. Which is fine. He's got to sort it out, and if Guy doesn't have to get involved, then he'll live. He doesn't even remember half of the details, save for the irritating mix of feelings in his gut that he wishes would kindly go the hell away.]

That's a heavy assumption to make, based on one conversation.

[And an incorrect one, at that. Plenty has chanced, even if it isn't immediately apparent. With him, with the people around him, with the village itself...

Things change. They always do. It's one of the things he hates about this place.

It bothers him, more and more, that he can't figure out who this Guy really is.]

[He doesn't answer at first, mainly because his thoughts have completely stalled at Ion's observation. Guy may not remember much, but he knows the last thing he saw. He remembers that last week in an empty apartment. He doesn't remember this wet, nippy weather.

It was hot. It was summer. This was definitely not summer.

So... another Guy had been here.

A million things rush in and out of his head before he lets himself remember that oh, yes, he's talking to someone.]

Y-yeah, of course. The community buildings are still around, right? I can just duck in there and figure more out in the morning.

Pretty sure Luke would like some privacy, anyway.

[Ion doesn't know what to make of that pause. Was he remembering something? Or was it because of something Ion said? Hm.]

[Unfortunately, that train of thought goes out the window at that last sentence. His tone grows a bit somber.]

I'm sorry, Guy. I'm afraid you missed Luke by a few weeks. He's been sent back to Auldrant.

Maybe I'm just a good guesser.

And maybe we don't have to base this on one conversation.

[And maybe he will always be biased as hell about how he views you and your personality and your everything else. The world could turn upside down and a Fabre would, at the end of the day, still be a Fabre.]

[And maybe Asch doesn't have to deal with this bullshit because he hasn't been given a good reason to stick around.

Hah.]

Or maybe you're still making those blind guesses so you don't have to bother getting to know people.

[Speaking of guesses.

He's pretty sure he knows which one this is, now. Or at least which one this isn't.]

Pretty sure that didn't do me a lot of good the first time around.

[Never mind the anger, never mind the disgust. He still never bothered to figure out why... and as much as he'd like to completely ignore it, it still bothers him, because it shouldn't make any sense.

...

He's tripping into territory he doesn't remember and he can't dwell here for long, but--]

If you don't want to talk, then we don't have to talk.

[He doesn't want to talk. He never does; that's the problem, really. And that, more than anything, is the evidence he needed to figure out who this was.

This was... Guy. Who'd killed him. Killed him, almost killed Luke, mocked him for bothering to care.

He doesn't... want to, but...]

You're the one who decided it was so important to conceal himself. Why reveal who you are to me? What do you want?

[Congratulations, you just earned yourself a filter.]

Why do you think?

If I'd shown my face, you would never talk. And if I didn't have to corner you to get basic information, then maybe this would be more graceful.

But I can't, and it isn't.

[And it won't be. Not right now, at least.]

Luke's gone. You're not. But at least he got the air cleared before he left.

[...Well.

If he hadn't been pissed off before...]

I see. So because he's gone, I'll just have to do? What an honour.

[I am not a replacement for him...!!]

[What the hell. Where did THAT come from?]

~~What---~~ Are you even reading what I said?

Okay, first: You're two different people. Hell, I thought you both understood that by now.

Second: That isn't what I'm talking about at all.

[Oh dear Yulia. Really????

He considers ignoring the message for about five seconds. If it was from Auldrant... well, hopefully he could at least narrow down who this clever devil was.]

< Happy to help. Can't say I'm much of a "businessman", though. So sorry to disappoint you. >

[What.

Like. He knew that. He definitely knew that.

But what.]

What are you talking about?

[It's not until the morning that this is written in reply, because every young beautiful Emperor needs their beauty rest. Yet it does come as Peony is, unlike some certain people, more interested in writing back to a fellow Auldranti than he is worried about who the anonymous writer is. Though--]

Shouldn't you first ask someone to a blind date before you go asking about everything else?

[Even though he might be glaringly obvious just through the fact of how he acts, he wasn't all that happy with having his name attached to it right off the bat when the other party was anonymous.]

Why should I tell you anything when you're hiding, yourself?

[She grins at the bear comment as she watches it scrawl onto the page. She's too lazy to start writing, honestly.]

It does fork. Kind of in the centre of town. I could try stars! But there might be an easier way. Can you see the mountain range from where you are?

[At the very least, he may recognize the handwriting.]

I'm not sure it is polite to ask for a woman's age, no matter what it might be.

[Was he flustered? Oh, Jade hopes that he was flustered. Of course, Jade certain from the handwriting that it's Guy. There's still some questions regarding the specifics of Guy's presence here to be addressed, but at the same time, it's fun just to poke at the poor Guy.]

< That is simply a shame. But rest assured, I believe that I'll stomach the disappointment.

In that case, you must operate in a much more "freelance" manner. >

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