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[It nods up at the corner of the house. Lead the way, then.

Gladion is crouched by the door, what he retrieved at his sides: a small cooler and two tools, a shovel and a cultivator.

He can guess why Silvally had him hang back. There's a pang there. Pride, aching. Guilt, prodding. It can do what he can't, and that's something to be in awe of, always.

At movement around the corner, he stands, gathering the tools up as he goes. He gives both of them a short, utilitarian glance, now steeled for the next step.]

Climb on and move out?

[This time, with unwieldy cargo in hand, he really won't be riding.]

[Rindo's blood runs cold at the sight of what Gladion's brought out. He'd not expected anything different, of course, but it's evocative in a way that makes his skin crawl.

He merely nods in response, not confident that his voice won't betray him. He climbs onto Silvally's back once more, readying his vines (slightly faster this time), then glances back at his fellow Nymph.

Rindo doesn't look okay, exactly, but that hug helped to vent out some of his emotions. It'll take a moment to rebuild his veneer of resolve, which had felt so much more genuine before Silvally nudged its way through the armor he'd unknowingly put up. Perhaps there is no being prepared for this—not truly. Leaving only one thing: getting it done in spite of that.

Nothing left to do but wait for Silvally to depart.]

[A nod in return.

Gladion takes point, leading Silvally down the hill behind the house and across the tree line. The woods very quickly become thick and wild, mounded roots hiding long drops into ravines that he veers around without a second glance.

They take a gentler path than that down into the stream between hills. Gladion hops up onto a fallen tree trunk to cross over it; Silvally simply walks through, water splashing around its ankles.

Then they pick their way up another slope, past lichen-streaked rock faces. There, where the slope levels out, the underbrush surges up into a wall of tangles and thorns. Gladion turns to follow the length of the wall, and slows his pace, looking for something.

Finds it, and pauses. Silvally stops too, a few paces behind him.

When he raises a hand, there's a chorus of answering creaks. The wall sighs; canes of brambles arch away and clear a path, as if pushing back a tent flap.

Gladion glances back, then enters. Silvally sighs, doesn't move further, and twists its head to squint back at Rindo. This is as far as it goes.]

[Rindo sits in silence as they depart. There's nothing more to be said.

On the way to their destination, his mind flitters unfocused between thoughts of home, of Swallow, of Nanami, of the person—or people—he's about to feed on. They all hurt.

The trip to the patch feels at once like an eternity and like it's over in the blink of an eye. He watches, awed, as Gladion parts the foreboding wall of brambles with seeming ease. Wonders briefly if that's something he will be able to do, at some point.

When Silvally turns its head, he leans forward, giving it a brief but firm hug. For courage. (Mutters a quiet "thanks" into its neck, too.)

He slides off Silvally, wincing as his roots sink into the mud. Is it just his imagination, or are they sucking up the moisture in the ground with… eagerness?

…

He casts Silvally one last glance before he enters the patch, very slowly. Though it's clear he has difficulty walking, lifting his knees high with each step to free his roots from the mud, it isn't enough to justify his downright reluctant pace.

But, nonetheless, he catches up with Gladion eventually.]

[The brambles fold themselves up again behind Rindo.

The patch is maybe twenty feet from end to end, and nearly circular. The bramble walls climb high overhead, draped from tree to tree; there's a round patch of sky overhead, dappled with branches.

Between the cloud cover and the canopy, the grove is dimly lit. And in that dim light...it's unassuming. The earth has been recently disturbed in spots and streaks, but there's nothing else on the surface to indicate what this place is for.

Gladion has planted the tools in the mud and set down his cooler, crouching by it with a grim expression. He turns that expression on Rindo once he catches up, peering up at him...sort of searchingly. Wanting to see how he responds, for both their sakes.]

...This doesn't need too much explaining. [They're here to bury human remains. Gladion is keeping his gaze from darting back and forth for the most part, but his isn't the face of someone who really wants to be doing or saying this. He opens the cooler and takes something out of the top, stands back up slowly, grabs the shovel, and offers it over.] It works best to spread it out horizontally, but it doesn't have to be too...precise. A few spots in a ring is fine. [And handing over the something from the cooler...it's a pair of garden gloves. There's a faint stain on the left wrist.]

[Rindo's eyes are practically burning a hole in the ground. Or in his roots, perhaps? It's hard to tell. (It's both.) The sound of Gladion's voice reaches his ears, but he doesn't process his words. Restless worry is crawling around his brain like so many skittering bugs. Eventually he blinks up at Gladion, who's handing him… a shovel and some gloves. They're stained.

He does not like this.

Even not having heard what Gladion said, it's not difficult to imagine. Formless fears congeal into one nagging thought.

Are there… remains here? From Gladion's past feedings? If yes, can his roots sense them? Will they…

Reactively, he clamps down on his roots with a mental iron grip. They haven't so much as twitched, motionless as ever, but he can't risk it. Especially not here. Even then, he's not confident that they won't just stop listening and spread and—

One strained word spills out.]

I-If… [Finishing the thought is a visible struggle.] …I lose control. Would you and Silvally be able to get away?

[He's not meeting Gladion's eyes, nor taking the offered tools.]

[Maybe half a second before Rindo gets the words together to reply, Gladion realizes: I can't make him do this. There's the script of this he had ready, and some half-baked convictions about confronting reality.

And then, tearing at those, there's the plain horror of the circumstances. The question of how he'll remember this after it's done; if he handled it properly, or if he made some kind of sick initiation ceremony out of it to satisfy his own...something. The jab to an already-raw spot, hearing in Rindo's fear something he doesn't have to imagine because he knows this...

Gladion stops, and— and plants the shovel back in the ground, stuffs the gloves in his pocket.

And steps forward.

And reaches out, and puts his hands on Rindo's shoulders. Grip just a little less than firm, no demand in it. If Rindo wants to look up, he'll meet Gladion's eyes in their complicated expression, deeply serious with shadows of concern. If he doesn't, then he doesn't.]

Silvally would run immediately, and I would subdue you.

Edited 2023-05-20 04:02 (UTC)

[Rindo startles at the sudden contact, and at the oddly foreign sensation of touch filtered through his shoulder leaves. This tears his focus away from his roots for a split second. They stay put. It's only a fleeting reassurance; he clamps down again.

He looks into Gladion's eyes, briefly, long enough to read his expression before he averts his gaze. Gladion understands. Something about being perceived right now is… more difficult than usual. Perhaps it's because there is no buffer—no room for it in this place. Two Nymphs facing the reality and consequences of being what they are, alone. Like looking in a mirror.

There's a confidence in the way Gladion speaks that Rindo wants to believe in even as his overactive mind protests—would a frenzying monster be so easily stopped?

He takes some of the vehemence with which he's holding his roots back and directs it at his own fears, creeping vinelike through his body. Pushes them out, the same way he's been trying to push out every other negative emotion, because—because there's no choice. It's that or breaking and you can't break here.]

I—… okay.

[Rindo's voice comes out shaky anyway. There's no world in which doing this isn't fraught.]

[Gladion is, in fact, completely confident that he could restrain Rindo if he had some kind of episode.

There's plenty of other things to waste time not being confident about.

For example: he's still concerned, and it's as if the closer he is, the harder it is to accept his concerns. Surely there's something he should do to address Rindo's obvious distress before he steps away. Surely, with a problem like this right in front of his nose, he's supposed to be able to do something about it.

But it's just wishful thinking. There's no fanfare when he lets go of Rindo's shoulders; he doesn't have anything he can hand over to make up for turning away. He has to just nod and trust Rindo to himself, while Gladion takes care of the last few steps.

Gloves on. He'll start with the contents of Rindo's bag: take out the parcels, set them on the cooler, and pause kneeling over them. For his own satisfaction, close his eyes and spend a few seconds mouthing some words to a dead audience.

Up again. Out into the center of the patch, driving the shovel down, bringing up a wedge of sodden loam. Repeat. Break open the first parcel. Take half of the contents (pink, slimy, visceral) and feed them to the soil. Cover them. Try very, very hard not to feel a weird little buzz of anticipation analogous to hunger. Move a few feet away, and do it again...]

[And just like that, Gladion lets go, and takes on the burden that rightfully ought to be Rindo's.

"Let me help," he tries to say, but the words die in his throat. He swallows them back up, where they settle in his stomach as guilt and shame, heavy, sickening. That quiet protesting voice cannot overpower the fear that's keeping him planted in one spot with an iron grip on his roots.

When Gladion begins to take out the parcels, he crouches, hugging himself, head buried in his knees and eyes scrunched shut, as if closing up could help him stay in control. Wound up tight, mentally and physically. Trying to go elsewhere in his head, to pretend that his hunger isn't stirring at the thought of what's being buried around him, awful foreign feeling, a parody of normalcy.

He can't even face what he's about to do. Can't even honor the lives lost for him to keep living. He really is a monster.]

[He's so focused on what he's doing, and on...not...drifting off, that Rindo's movements don't register to Gladion until he's nearly done. It's clumsily done, but...but with the ground this saturated, and with the pressure of the circumstances, it's not going to be done any better.

(Stay present. Focus on breathing. Hold off that itch at the edge of consciousness...)

He looks up. His heart jumps into his throat for an instant. But Rindo isn't moving, and neither is anything from his back, or his feet. Is it a loss of control? Or just...

Feeling vaguely lightheaded, he covers the last pit and crosses the patch again; drops the shovel and approaches Rindo, cautiously.

Crouches down slowly.]

...Rindo?

[Rindo blinks at Gladion's approaching footsteps and voice, then lifts his head to give him a bleary look. He seems lucid, but also a little haunted.

…Gladion, meanwhile, sounds worried, which makes Rindo realize he should probably say something in response.]

…Yeah?

[Quiet and strained.]

[Okay. He's still here. Even as Gladion's senses start to wander.]

It's ready. [Wander, and slip out of time, as if - as if this time is every other time he's come here. It's not the same, but it feels the same, like the woods swallow up the differences. He's not hungry, but he's tethered to something that lifts its head in interest, and sniffs after the smell of blood...]

Don't rush it, though. [If it's anything like his, he won't need to. Once it starts, it'll just...go. Or maybe Gladion just can't bring himself to goad someone into doing it, when push comes to shove, and he'll accept any reason to not have to? His ears are pinned; his hands are lifted like he can't quite decide if he wants to reach for Rindo's shoulders again.]

[Well, here it is.

A few seconds, then Rindo stands up, slowly. He's stayed in this one spot the whole time, so his roots have sunk into the earth a little. A foreign part of himself finds this comfortable, even as it turns his hungry stomach.

At this point, after all that was said and done, just getting through it is the easiest option.

He looks at the other Nymph. There are many things he wants to say to him.

"Thank you."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't look."
"Please stay here."
"Keep yourself safe."

Rindo opens his mouth a few times as if to speak, but no words come out. Eventually, he averts his eyes. Vulnerability is difficult at the best of times and this is… well.

One heavy, mud-drenched step after another, Rindo moves into the center of the ring, where he stands still and silent. His eyes are trained on his roots with single-minded focus, pointedly nowhere near the freshly-disturbed soil.

He stays like this for a while, occasionally taking deep breaths as if psyching himself up, his roots twitching ever so slightly. Nothing comes of it.

Some minutes pass.]

[After a few of Rindo's false starts, Gladion just nods. Maybe he doesn't quite know what would have been said, but enough of this is beyond words that it hardly matters.

He steps away when Rindo steps forward, giving him some room. Refusing the tug that prickles across his skin. Watching, though he feels like he shouldn't.

(Reassembling his scattered memories in real time, pasting them over the outline of what he's seeing. When he felt frozen, with the meat in hand, when he didn't know how long he'd been standing there - it probably looked like this.

It's uncomfortable. This makes it all...more real, somehow.)]

Edited 2023-05-25 02:41 (UTC)

[Rindo senses Gladion's gaze on him. He can't quite tell whether he wants him to stop watching or not. It's extra pressure, but… Gladion's both mentor and peer. Not quite fully articulated thought: if this lets Gladion ensure things are done properly and feel less lonely at the same time, then maybe it's okay.

In the end, he just lets it happen—it's easier that way. He forces himself to ignore it and focus on his roots instead, which he's kept under mental lock and key this whole time. Now, though, he's trying to get them to do something beyond little jolts and twitches, and it's not working. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why—he has to let them do whatever it is they want to do. He can tell. "Instincts, of some kind, come along with a lot of this."

It feels like giving in to the Fog. Passing a threshold from which there's no returning. Perhaps that's why he's so reticent.

But he's hungry.

A few more minutes pass—more attempts to work around the inevitable—before Rindo resigns himself. They can't spend all day here, and turning back isn't an option. Of course, knowing is one thing, and doing is another entirely. But eventually, a flash of boldness peeks between the cracks of his fears, and he finds the courage he needs. At last, he lets go.

It's like a rubber band that was pulled taut finally snapping. Much faster than he anticipated, the roots grow—and yet their speed isn't a surprise, as if he knew what they were capable of all along. Each "toe" becomes longer, sprouting thinner offshoots, all rushing along the surface of the earth, outward, spreading near-evenly toward their goal—the ring.

It is then that horror grips at Rindo's heart as he realizes Gladion's in the way—

However, when he looks in the other Nymph's direction, the roots are nowhere near him. They've gone around without Rindo's active, conscious input, as if avoiding Gladion deliberately.

Rindo barely has any time to process his own relief; all of this took place within the span of a few seconds. Now the roots have reached the edge of the patch. Just as quickly, they plunge into the ground with effortless ease, and into what's buried there, and—

the world stops.

Feeding had been such an inconceivable thought that any attempts at picturing the act ended at that exact point. Now he stands on the other side of that, rooted treelike into the earth with his awareness expanding, and the knowledge of exactly what it is he's doing sitting heavy in his mind.

There is no pain, no fanfare, as the roots begin to extract nutrients from the buried remains, carrying them back to him. The process is invisible—he can feel it happening.

As fear fades (he didn't lose control, he didn't hurt Gladion), shame and guilt take center stage. It shouldn't feel good—but it does. It fills a cavernous, primal need. Maybe "hunger" was never the right term for it, merely the closest analogue a human could think of.

And now… something in his mind is beginning to shift. A quiet slowness is creeping in around the edges of his awareness, enveloping him, dulling the sharp edges of his emotions. An invitation, imperious, to cease all thought, to disappear into the sensations of being rooted. (Sustenance. Dampness. The minute vibrations within the soil as bugs crawl and burrow.)

He isn't sure that he can resist, reject this. He isn't sure that he wants to.

Eyelids close on unseeing eyes. He can no longer hear the rain.

And so he loses himself in a trance, more still than a human ought to be. Because he's a Nymph, doing what it's meant to do.]

[When those roots split and splay, Gladion watches them without alarm—and that's the clearest sign of something having shifted in him, because fear always retreats to the edges of his senses when he goes to feed.

Instead, the sight is fascinating. There's something satisfying about the pattern. Something...healthful, or promising. It leaves a little spot for him, and that's vaguely satisfying too, like blue sky peeking through crown-shy channels.

Gladion watches. And, distantly, feels ill.

Closer to the surface, he itches to join in. The rest of him considers it from a strategic perspective. It might be safer to feed than to try to deny instinct for that long—

No.

He steps back carefully over the edge of the ring. Rindo is—he's fine. For now. He's conditionally fine, for as long as he's feeding. When it's over, he'll want to leave. (When it's over, Gladion will want to leave.)

...He ends up sitting on the cooler out by the bramble wall, trying to let his mind half-drift. Not far enough that he's not aware of what Rindo is doing, but...far enough to pass the time. Out into the grove, rather than into his own feelings.

As if that's any better.]

[In this state, Rindo has very little awareness of the passage of time. His eyes blink open to the same dappled gray light filtered through the canopy above. At least night hasn't fallen.

Coming back to his senses—his normal senses—is a slow process. It appears correlated with his roots' movement, which stir as they begin to contentedly retract to their usual shape and size. They travel along the mud, leaving diluted rivulets of blood in their wake.

The hunger that had been tormenting him since he woke up has vanished, leaving in its place a whole other kind of emptiness—one not so easily filled. He lets out a shaky sigh as thoughts swirl their way back into his mind.

It had been peaceful, in the end. The same could surely not be said of the people whose remains were buried around him.

…Eventually, he notices Gladion. He's hit with the sudden urge to walk right over and hug him. (Feel like a human again.) He does not act on it.

Instead he just takes a deep breath, and speaks. His voice is quiet, but it sounds far too loud in his ears.]

…Gladion.

[The roots are back to normal now. So unassuming.]

[In the space between Rindo's roots withdrawing and his voice calling out, Gladion disentangles himself from the brambles and their trees. Part of him expects to return to a world of shock and confusion, like the one he'd returned to from his first feeding. The ghost of that memory is heavy in the air.

It pushes him to his feet quickly, once his name is called. He wants to get out of here. He wants to never show his face outside of here. He almost replies, "welcome back", but the words go sour before they come up his throat.

He approaches instead, lifting his feet a little higher in the softened, soaked soil of the ring. Close enough that he could put a hand on Rindo's shoulder. He almost does.]

...Do you want to leave?

[Rindo just nods, too lost in his own head to process Gladion's agitation beyond merely noticing the fact of its presence. With Gladion close, the urge to hug him only intensifies, but he shuts it down. It's too much, in some kind of way.

This isn't the place for it, anyway. He just wants out of here. He glances at the spot in the wall of brambles where they'd entered from what feels like an eternity ago, wondering if he'll ever feel even remotely close to normal again on the other side.]

[Okay. Getting them out of here is something he can do. Forget the nagging feeling, as if he's forgotten something—

Gladion does put a hand on Rindo's shoulder, now, almost urgently once he has a direction to move in. First from before him, with the heel of his palm on Rindo's front. Then, within the seconds it takes to turn and start walking, the other way around, as if steering him from behind.

His hand isn't steady, but he can act like it is. Walk them to the edge, will the brambles to part. Awkwardly let go of Rindo to duck down and grab the cooler and tools. On the other side of the wall, a sodden Silvally jumps up from where it was sitting, tucking its chin to its chest and whistling tentatively at them.]

[The sudden contact startles Rindo, but he goes along with Gladion's almost-push without a protest.

His roots feel strange. Now that he knows what they're capable of, far more mobile and expansive than he'd ever imagined they could be, he senses them adjusting ever so slightly to the shape of the ground below with every step. As if, now that he's allowed them to do what must be done, he's also unlocked their more… mundane functions.

Once the wall opens before them, revealing a waiting Silvally, Rindo moves without thinking. He makes a soft, stumbling collision with the creature and throws his arms around its neck, pressing his cheek against it. If Gladion sees, well… that's perfectly fine.]

[Silvally grunts and sits down again, pressing its chin against Rindo's head, shooting Gladion a wide-eyed look over him. Gladion's reply is a grimace, heart sinking further, throat tight.

(He'd wandered home alone; then, past midnight, feeling as if he'd crossed through yet another world somewhere along the way, summoned Mana.)

He comes up behind Rindo, reaching up past him to rub Silvally's ear. Then another false start for Rindo's shoulder, until he's sure he doesn't mean to urge anyone along just yet.

He just means to—to connect. Maybe.

Gladion's grip is tentative, not wanting to crush the leaves he can feel under the fabric.]

...I'm sorry.

[He sounds miserable.]

[When Gladion's hand makes its return on his shoulder, Rindo turns his face to shoot him a lost and bewildered look, wondering just why he's holding himself back now, with one wall knocked down and the other rapidly crumbling.

Ultimately, after staring for a few seconds, it's the echo of Gladion's voice in his mind that pushes him over the edge. If he's going to be giving into impulses, at least this one is human and it's his. Before he can talk himself out of it, one arm unwraps itself from Silvally's neck and gets thrown around Gladion's back, pulling him… a lot more toward Silvally than himself, but still into some manner of a three-way embrace. His hold isn't firm, as if seeking permission; if Gladion wanted to slip away, he could do so easily.

…Maybe they both need this.]

[Gladion finds himself pulled in, and in—surprise? is this actually a surprising development?—doesn't resist, going sort of limp into it.

Silvally's feathers up against his face are a deeply familiar sensation, even rain-soaked. One more thing that's less like that day. The arm over his back is another. What should I do? he asks himself automatically, but his heart isn't in the answering; he feels dizzy, barely-anchored, still stuck on that glimpse of Rindo's expression. He doesn't know what to do about the hug, because he doesn't even know what to do about that look, and if he follows that back too far then he might find out he doesn't know what to do about any of this and hasn't come any closer to figuring it out.

An arm across Rindo's back, then. A little lower, sort of around his ribs so that he can hold on tight enough to call it a hug. The other arm low across the base of Silvally's neck, too.

Gladion closes his eyes, drops his face into feathers, and lets his head spin.

...It only takes a few seconds to forget that he's supposed to be doing this for Rindo's sake. It hurts in a good way.]

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