And still more plot!

[merikuru]

Okay. Here's where things get really fuckery and Senia's plot majorly expands.

(I completely blame the friend who's been prodding me to write this stuff.)

There is something else that'll come in between the last one and this, which will come next...


"There you are, Y'senia," Lyse's voice comes from behind me, startling me so deeply I almost drop the large sheaf of papers I'm holding. "You had me worried when you left so quickly earlier. Has something happened?"

Embarrassed by my own reaction, I shake my head and take a deep breath, setting the papers down with a properly sheepish look as I turn to face her. "No...I didn't mean to worry you. I just wanted to look into something while I was thinking about it." Not that I suspect she'll be entirely satisfied with that answer, but nor am I certain I can find the nerve to tell her precisely what it is I'm looking for here, so it'll just have to do. "I'm all right...truly. I hope I haven't missed anything important?" I go on in my best lighthearted tone, trying my hardest for normality.

She doesn't answer immediately, just studies me for a long moment as if she's trying to decide whether I speak truth or not, and it's all I can do not to squirm in discomfort, settling instead for discreetly twitching my tail into a flat press against the back of a leg that hopefully she won't notice - but of course she's too keenly observant not to, her eyes flickering towards the brief motion as it catches her attention, and the smile she gives me is so full of sympathy that I can hardly bear to even look at it. "...This is about what you saw when you faced Zenos, isn't it? Ah, but it's all right if you don't want to tell me...I'm sorry if I'm overstepping."

Caught off guard by how easily she's hit the nail right on the head, I hesitate just a moment too long, and by the time I have my wits about me enough to answer, it's far too late to deny it. "...No, you're right. It is," I respond quietly, turning my eyes downward just a little and taking another slow, calming breath, letting my gaze go distant as I sort through the nebulous memories. "There are so many things I've never known about myself, about my life before I became an adventurer...I don't remember my father at all, I hardly remember my mother, and everything from soon after I lost her until I was roughly seventeen has been a complete blank till recently. But, when Zenos looked into my eyes before we fought, when he brought to bear the true power he held within him...at that moment, I saw what could only have been a flash of my own past." Shuddering briefly, I bring a hand up to rest over the bandana that covers my left eye, wondering if I'm only imagining I can feel a faint pain growing there. "...You found us just as that happened. Tell me, Lyse. When you looked on us, did you see anything...unusual?"

Lyse looks as if she doesn't quite understand why I ask that question, but she puts a hand to her chin in deep thought anyway, lips pursing into a slight frown. "Well...I did think something passing strange, now that you mention it. When that sigil appeared in his eyes, as it had in Fordola's own...that wasn't the strange part," she hurries to say, head shaking briefly. "You went white as a sheet when that happened, and then...I suppose I didn't think about it consciously until just now, but I noticed your eye wasn't covered just then...because the same thing happened to you. It was as if Zenos held some kind of...key, or something of the like, that unlocked in you something similar to the powers of the Resonant. But I thought, surely that couldn't be possible...perhaps I'd only imagined it, perhaps it was only some sort of illusion. I wouldn't have put it past him to try and mislead anyone who might have happened on the scene..." Her frown deepens, and she shakes her head again. "But never mind that. Is that what you meant?"

Having my thoughts confirmed is far less of a relief than I'd imagined it might be, and I sigh heavily, feeling as if all the vitality has suddenly gone out of me, forcing me to find the nearest chair to sink into before my legs give out. "Yes...that was it. The moment I saw it. I'd had my suspicions, but..." pressing my hand over my covered eye again, I choose my words carefully before I go on. "I'd met him before, Lyse, without knowing it. When I was still but a child - when he was little more than one himself. And I think...he remembered me, when he and I met on the battlefield in Othard. Maybe that's why..." wincing slightly, I press on before the weight of the words can become too much to even say. "Maybe that's why he let me live, at that time. To confirm his own suspicions as to who I was, and to make me remember."

Shock clear on her face, Lyse fetches a chair of her own, sits herself down facing me. "What do you mean, you'd met him before? Y'senia...what did you see?"

Closing both eyes tightly, I let my hand drop to my lap, feeling numb all over as I finally voice the words I haven't even been able to say to myself.

"After I lost my mother, I was captured...and taken into Garlean custody."

The sound Lyse emits nearly defies description, some mixture of a sob, a gasp and a despairing cry, and in an instant she's flown out of her chair to my side, her arms around me protectively tight - almost too tight, really, but I don't have the energy to complain, simply leaning into her and letting my forehead come to rest against her shoulder as I go on. "They used me for an experiment similar to what they were doing with Krile, and with the others they drained the aether from...I don't know exactly what it was, but I do know it must have been the precursor to their recent work, to what eventually became the creation of the Resonant. That's where, and when, it happened." A definite twinge is manifesting behind my eye now, but I resolutely ignore it, determined to finish in the hopes of finding at least a bit of catharsis. "I spent most of my time sleeping, or drugged so thoroughly I may as well have been asleep. But occasionally I'd be escorted outside, allowed to have just a bit of time away from their accursed labs - and one of those times is when I saw him, in the very same gardens I'd been taken to. He was training there, by himself; I remember thinking he seemed so lonely...I thought perhaps I could speak to him, but before I could do more than meet his eyes, I was promptly scolded for not knowing my place and whisked right back inside." A sardonic smile touches my lips, and I shrug. "At the time I didn't even know who he was, so I never quite understood that."

"I can't believe this," Lyse murmurs, sounding utterly bewildered, her hold on me tightening for a moment before she seems to realise what she's doing and lets up enough that I can at least breathe properly. "Do you think...they used you as a starting point for future research, to create the Resonant?"

"...I don't know," I say reluctantly - to be honest, I'd wondered that myself, but with no way of finding a satisfactory answer, I hadn't wanted to dwell on it. "But I do know he remembered me. So it's a possibility..."

"More than just a possibility, I'd think." Lyse even sounds like she's frowning now, and when I draw back enough to look up at her face, it reads distant anger. "I've just realised, something makes sense now. Fordola said - I thought she was just trying to get a rise out of me, but she said that Zenos told her you were like her...he warned her of your power, and told her to beware your eye. It didn't make sense then - I was certain he lied to her just to make her hate us all the more - but if what you're telling me is the truth, and not just some product of his own twisted mind somehow toying with your memories..." she trails off there, expression turning apologetic. "Not that I'm implying you're not telling the truth, mind you! I know you better than that. You wouldn't lie, especially not about something like this. But we don't know what all Zenos was able to do, so maybe he--"

"He didn't mislead me, or plant false memories in my head. Of that much I'm certain." I reach up again, absently, touching cautious fingertips to my covered eye. "So he told Fordola that I, as well, was a Resonant. That's what you're saying?"

Slowly, reluctantly, Lyse nods once, her shoulders slumping a little. "...Is it true, then?"

"I...I'm not sure I know the answer to that." It hurts to admit, honestly, and I feel like my entire world's just been upended a little bit more by even saying it out loud, but the gnawing doubt won't let me even try for a denial. "I want to say it isn't, but...not knowing the eventual outcome of what they did to me, or even precisely what they were trying to do, I can't say that. And I do have to admit that when the Echo takes me, it's different from Arenvald, from the other Walkers...but on the other hand, I've had naught as bad as Fordola has, walking nigh on constantly in others' memories. The only one who could say for sure either way would be Zenos, and, well..." That certainly wouldn't be happening, what with him having ended himself before the true peace he'd found could be taken from him, and I find my eyes welling up with tears as the thought forces me to recall his smile at the very end. "...No, forget it. I just - there's only one thing that still bothers me. I don't recall leaving the labs; how did it happen?"

"I believe I may be able to answer that one," comes a voice from apparently nowhere, and both Lyse and I jump sharply when Thancred seems to simply melt out of the shadows nearby. "Pray forgive me for eavesdropping, but..."

"Never mind that. What do you mean," I burst out before Lyse has a chance to even draw breath to speak, my voice taking on a raw and nervous edge, "you may be able to answer that one?"

"Put simply - it was most likely my fault." Thancred takes in our incredulous expressions, gives a wry smile, shrugging and folding his arms. "I admit to being just as shocked as the both of you are, but listening to Y'senia just now, I recalled a bit of subterfuge I had undertaken several years ago. Presuming the timelines match up, and I am certain they do - answer me one thing, if you can, Y'senia. Do you, by chance, remember how old you were when you gained your freedom?"

"I'm not sure," I answer, slow and confused, brow furrowing deeply as I try to sift through the hazy remnants of memory in the back of my mind. "That's still mostly a blank...but the last day I remember being there...the entire facility was in a uproar, and--" the memory of it seems to be growing stronger, panicked cries, orders being barked out from every direction, the man who was meant to be minding my child self nowhere to be seen - and I close my eyes tightly, press my palms against them, breathing beginning to accelerate in sheer anxiety. "There was - I don't know what happened, but they let me alone because of it and I - they hadn't yet given me the day's sedatives, so when I realised no one was watching me, I...I ran. I ran until it hurt, until I couldn't breathe, until I couldn't even move any more..." Letting my hands drop, I lace my fingers tightly together in my lap in an attempt to ground myself, and I don't even realise how badly I'm shaking until Lyse takes her arms from around me to let Thancred embrace me instead, pulling me tight against his chest. "...Someone...when I was running, someone called out to me, told me which way to go - I never saw his face but...but I remember his voice and...oh. Oh--"

Thancred nods, tilts his head down to rest his cheek against my hair. "You remember," he murmurs quietly, and it's not a question.

"Oh gods," I breathe, and then I'm unexpectedly sobbing with the wave of emotion that crashes into me, clinging to him as tightly as I can and burying my face into his chest. "It was you...you saved me..."

"I was investigating the very thing I believe they had captured you for - there were quite well-founded rumours flying about of people who were quite intimately attuned with aether, or those who had the potential to be, being subjected to all manner of terrible experiments to figure out the how and why of it. Of course, that could not have been let to stand, so the decision was made to try and end their little enterprise, and someone had to get in there to be a distraction while others dismantled the entire place. I, as you may have guessed, was the...lucky one chosen to get their attention." Thancred's smiling wryly again; I don't even have to look, I can hear it in his voice. "Of all the things I had expected to come across, a panicked child trying to find their way out was not one of them - and I could not merely ignore your plight. But though I was able to direct you to freedom, I never did find out whether you had survived...until today."

"So what you're saying is that you didn't know Y'senia was that child until just now." Finding her voice again at last, Lyse too sounds like she's giving a wry smile. "Has she changed so much?"

"I don't look anything like I did when I was only small," I retort shakily, never mind that it's rather muffled by my face still being firmly planted in Thancred's shirt. "And that's not a bad thing. I was not a pretty child."

"No, I merely never got a proper look at the time." Thancred makes a quiet, considering sound, and then he's nudging me back and tipping my head up with a gentle hand under my chin, eyeing my face keenly. "It does prove rather difficult to commit the details of one's appearance to memory when you see them only in passing - yet there can be no doubt, you are the child I saw. Your hair, your eyes..." he trails off, frowning slightly as if deep in thought, as if something vitally important has just occurred to him. "Pray forgive me this digression, but I would have you tell me something, if you can. As a very young child, can you recall anyone seeming suspicious of your appearance? Hateful, perhaps?"

Though I don't really understand what he's getting at, I consider the question anyway, tail briefly twitching at more vague flashes of memory unearthed. "...Now that you mention it...I do remember such. And I know why. Though I never knew the man who sired me, when I was old enough to understand, my mother told me of him...he was born of a Hyuran woman and a Miqo'te man, taking after his own mother in appearance, and shunned as a result. So to that end, she, and I, were shunned as well - her for taking up with a halfbreed--" saying the word makes me tremble with rage, both ears flattening sharply back, and I'm forced to pause before the urge to spit in disgust can take me. "And me for being the child of that union. She told me once that I resembled him greatly, so...it only stands to reason that the hatred was because of that. Because I was the living reminder of him."

Silent for a long moment, mulling that over, Thancred finally gives a slow nod, looking distantly pensive. "I have no doubt that was at least a large part of it...but I would give you something to consider. Your appearance is passing strange by all standards, is it not? Therefore, your sire's appearance must also have been - and that leads us, then, to the question of why. I cannot say for certain whether my suspicion is correct, not at this time, yet..." he pauses, gently brushes his hand through the fringe of my hair, letting the strands slide between his fingers. "I rather mislike having to say this so bluntly, but think, Y'senia. Your features, your appearance...they cannot merely be explained by the ancestry you have told me of. That is to say, I do not think it is from the Hyuran portion of you that it comes - but from something else entirely. Something that would explain why Garlemald would take an interest in you, be it true..."

I open my mouth to say I still don't understand, but then I do, and the chill that goes through me is enough to make me stiffen, my tail lashing sharply in agitation by now. "You cannot possibly be implying that I--"

Thancred smiles sadly, looking weary, as if he desperately wants to agree with my own distaste but cannot quite manage it. "It explains everything, Y'senia. The hatred, the scorn - the very reason you were captured. Within your veins, I fear, runs some small amount of Garlean blood."

As sick as it makes me to think of it, as much as I don't want to admit it...I have the suspicion that he's right, and the very thought makes me feel faint, a smothering blackness closing in on me that forces me to clutch at him to stay on my feet. "No," I manage, a bare breath, faint and helpless, and I feel like I want to cry but the tears just won't come. "No."

He holds me tighter, protectively so, and I think he might be speaking again, but it's too hard to tell around the buzzing in my ears that's growing steadily louder; it's pervasive, all-consuming, and with it comes an unexpected pain, gnawing at the edges of my consciousness as it blossoms relentless in my head. The selfsame pain I've felt so many times before, when I've walked in others' memories, when I faced Fordola, when I looked into Zenos' eyes - but I know not what has brought it to bear and I have not the mind to figure out what, instead lurching unsteadily from his arms and bringing shaking hands up to my face to all but tear away the shielding cloth. Perhaps I don't really need an answer, I already know it and it might even be better not to do what I am just now, but with every last bit of my willpower and strength, I raise my head and force my eyes wide open.

The look on their faces as they gaze upon me, the same dismayed shock, only confirms what I already know.

The eye of the Resonant...I, too, truly possess it. Then, that means I am...

"I am no better," I gasp without thinking, and my knees are already giving way even as I speak, sending me crumpling to the floor. "No better...than any of them...in the end."

Unconsciousness presses in on me again, and this time I succumb, letting it take me until the pain and the guilt is no more.