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[gravings]

I need this now apparently

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[gravings]

Oh.

[ That's probably a good thing. The Pleroma sure are soft on their youths. ]

There's only one Aion here younger than me [except Majorita really isn't] but I think she likes to fight. I think... on average... your Aions are probably a bit more mild-mannered than ours.

[comelately]

[ that gets a little laugh out of him, despite everything. ]

I don't know about that. We've got some crazy folks here, too. [ not naming names but hayame ] ... I'm saying all this, but do you actually know how to fight?

[ WHAT was gray doing back home... ]

[gravings]

Oh... yes. I was a gravekeeper.

[ This undoubtedly means more to her than it will to him... ]

Maybe you know this already, but ghosts can be very dangerous.

[comelately]

Ghosts? I don't really believe in stuff like that...

[ ... ]

... Well, maybe I believe in 'em now. [ he kind of has to. ] Isn't gravekeeping more about chasing away robbers than spirits?

[expiera]

I simply spoke my mind, no different from you. [Or how Gray is learning to, forming her own stance and putting her wishes into action.] Achamoth will be fine. The Kenoma will be fine. ["Without you."] You must evaluate and prioritize, on what's the most important part at the greatest risk of being lost forever.

[It doesn't need any elaborating, surely. And she does mean more than Gray's sense of self, in this case.]

Hold onto this feeling. When the time comes, don't look back.

[A stronger breeze blows by, lifting Ciel's bangs and threatening to push back Gray's hood. The view of the waters here from this shore... It's probably the last time they'll be here together like this, isn't it.

That's fine, so be it. As long as Gray follows her heart, her soul, they will certainly lead her away from here. Which is for the best, and affirming her wishes is all Ciel can do for her.]

communion; after the raid

[hundredpower]

[Once the fighting has subsided and the dust begins to settle on the city, Barnaby gets wind that, some time after his own injuries in the fight against the Sanctifier, Gray was also wounded in the battle and hasn't been seen in the Citadel since.

There could be any number of reasons for that, so he doesn't jump to conclusions, but it's still cause enough for him to reach out in concern.]

Gray? It's Barnaby. Are you all right?

convenient post-raid o'clock

[comelately]

[ It's been nearly two months since the last time he saw her - two months filled with nothing but strife. Johnny's still recovering from the burns Ciel gave him, to say nothing of the sudden disappearance of the only person he actually trusted around here; the other Pleroma have been out whittling their lives to the bone, fighting for Vaeka, fighting for Abel and Himeka, and he's not even sure any of it was worth it, considering the needle hasn't moved at all from his perspective. Any moral victories feel hollow to him. Morality won't bring back Gyro. It won't heal his body. It certainly won't save anyone whose suffering he cares about, and that includes Gray.

It takes him a while to reach out, because he has no idea what the situation may be like for the Kenoma right now. They've been dealt quite a few blows in a row; he's sure their benevolent leader is displeased, and he doesn't know what they might have done to quell that displeasure. Brainwashing? Torture? Has someone been made an example of? It's obvious that none of these tactics are below the Regent now. Johnny can't even be sure Gray is alive - or, if she is, that she's the same girl he'd spoken to before. That's the reality they live in now.

Still, he decides to try. Pressing forward in spite of it all is one of his most stubborn habits. ]

... Gray? Are you still out there? It's Johnny...

[gravings]

[ This may be the first time in Gray's life that she's been told to her "face" that someone doesn't believe in ghosts, and it momentarily takes her aback. She's seen such claims in movies, so she knew non-believers existed, but it's different to meet one in person. ]

Robbers... um, I suppose so, but the cemetery I watched over didn't have much to steal.

[ ... ]

Why didn't you believe in ghosts?

[gravings]

[ When he reaches out to her, she's alone and still, guarding the entrance to the shrine Eustace's shard is housed in like a hooded statue. Aside from the few hermit-like researchers who live in the nearby observatory and the occasional animal, the shrine is highly isolated, and there are few distractions to draw her from the thoughts rolling in and out like the tide.

When Johnny's voice pokes at her, she's jostled from her trance. There may be wisdom in not responding — it's a sensitive time between Kenoma and Pleroma — but she responds automatically, trusting in Johnny's best intentions. ]

Yes, I'm here.

[ Her voice is quiet and calm after a long bout of meditation, though her usual soft undertone remains. ]

Is everything alright, Mr. Johnny?

[gravings]

[ In the time following the raid on Achamoth, Gray has had more than enough time to think. As with the silence after an explosion, the shock of all that's happened washes over her, allows her to hit a reset button on her thinking. It gives her time to stop and step back and evaluate how she should think about Barnaby.

Even so, she isn't quite prepared when he contacts her out of the blue. As she sits at the entrance to the Seeker shrine, guarding the shard of the man Barnaby dissipated, it's hard to pretend that things are normal. Even though this is normal by this world's standards. Barnaby and Eustace are on opposite sides, and it's expected that people on opposite sides will fight each other. Despite that, it feels all wrong. What makes things especially difficult is knowing that something happened to Barnaby after his sabotage that left him different at the end of it.

There's a long pause before she responds, and when she does, there's a blunt despondency to her tone, a helpless grain of grief. ]

What did the Regent do to you?

[hundredpower]

[There could be any number of things that could have caused such grief, any number of actions he took during the raid, but it's still like a knife to the heart to hear that question. Still, he's made his choices, and he's prepared to live with the consequences. Even if that hurts someone he cares about, he has to do what is necessary.

So he gives her an answer.]

I had rejected the Kenoma, and the Regent's goals, because of my own misconceptions. The Regent simply corrected that, and returned me to the correct path.

It was a difficult process, [He can't deny that much, when she had seen the state he was in when he went to see her shortly after his release--] but it was a necessary one. I'm grateful to them.

[comelately]

[ luckily, her trust is well-placed. He's not interested in picking fights, and least of all with Gray. In fact, hearing her voice elicits a small wave of relief from him. At least she's still kicking. ]

I can't complain. [ he's got all his limbs and he's still breathing. Still thinking his own thoughts, too, which is something he can no longer take for granted. Perhaps most pertinent, however: ] I didn't go to Achamoth with the others.

[ he's been safe, relatively; he doesn't elaborate on the reasons why. After that, there's a moment of hesitation, Johnny trying to figure out what he actually wants to say. When he thinks about the Kenoma, he thinks about people like her and Misa before he thinks about the Regent - ordinary people that got sucked up into this stupid conflict, not some unknowable forces of darkness. After Godsblood, he wasn't sure if he should try reaching out again. After this raid, though, he feels like he has to. ]

How are you holding up over there? [ a beat. ] ... I know it's stupid for me to ask something like this, so don't get on my case about it. Just indulge me.

[comelately]

Well... I know they talk about spirits and stuff in the Bible, but I never saw one, so I figured it was just a metaphor or whatever. People make up things like that so their kids listen to 'em all the time.

[ and what is church if not a big organized parent trying to discipline its rowdy children?! of course, his feelings are a little more complicated nowadays. ]

[gravings]

[ She exudes a small swell of relief when she hears that he didn't go to Achamoth. It makes logistical sense that he didn't, but logistics didn't stop him from being at Venera or Godsblood.

She doesn't respond immediately to his question as she wonders if this is really the only reason why he contacted her. It's a bit absurd, as he's apparently already realized himself. Sitting on the precipice of some great shift, starkly isolated, she finds his very normal and sweet-minded question hard to digest. But it touches her directly, a simple and sincere question to cut through the tangle of the last couple days. ]

I'm not in Achamoth anymore, so I don't know what the situation is there. I have Mr. Eustace's shard with me.

[ She doesn't know if Johnny knows that Eustace turned Pleroma. Maybe it doesn't matter. ]

[comelately]

You're -- what?

[ that is not what he was expecting to hear. She hadn't seemed like a Regent loyalist or anything, but she'd been quite clear about her position the last time they spoke. Maybe he's reading into it too much, and she's just gone to Godsblood - or maybe, since Eustace died, she's visiting the shrine to revive him. Multiple explanations flash through his head, and his confusion and uncertainty is plain to feel. ]

What do you mean...? You're just living somewhere else, or... [ well. May as well be direct. ] Did you ditch the Regent? Is that how Eustace got taken out?

[gravings]

[ There's something about his response that feels wrong. He says he feels grateful, and maybe he is, but there's nothing personal or passionate there, only a barren acceptance of the discipline he was given. He frames what was done to him as enlightenment, but to her ears it sounds like propaganda. ]

What... misconceptions?

[gravings]

[ As someone who doesn't really believe in God despite being reasonably familiar with the Bible and also magic, she supposes she doesn't have much room to question him. It really is hard to believe what you can't see.

... Oh. She realizes belatedly that he knows what the Bible is. She'd briefly taken it for granted that everyone would know. ]

Mr. Johnny, are you from Earth too? Most Londoners believe in ghosts even if they don't interact with them directly, so I thought... Um, where are you from?

[gravings]

[ All fair questions. She doesn't even fully know the answers to some of them herself. ]

Mr. Eustace... He turned Pleroma recently. He came back to Achamoth for the attack, but he lost in a fight with Mr. Barnaby. Minegishi was able to get his shard, so we took it and left.

[ No secrets here... Johnny doesn't seem like the type to exploit this kind of information, if there's anything here to be exploited. ]

We're going to wait here until Mr. Eustace... comes back. If the Regent took his shard, I don't think they would leave him intact.

[hundredpower]

Are you aware of what I did in Venera, when those of us assigned there were ordered to arrest known rebels and dissidents? I helped rescue a number of them, even if that meant turning against the other Kenoma and attacking them. I rejected the Kenoma completely, and when I lost my powers, I was captured and returned to Achamoth.

[It's almost unnaturally calm, even robotic, the way Barnaby relays all these details -- or it would be, if not for the barely-contained spike of anxiety and distress that leaks across their connection. Even as twisted as he is now, even if he can repeat verbatim what the Regent has lead him to believe, that doesn't mean those events harmed him any less.]

Some of my memories are unclear after that. But I recall very clearly that the Regent showed me why I was mistaken to risk so much only for a handful of lives. Across all the many words, humanity always inflicts suffering and cruelty on itself. I saw countless atrocities, endless injustices... The indifference endured by those who suffer most, those born into neglect with no one to care for them, who are exploited and abused... The majority who live safe and comfortable lives, choosing to live in ignorance while those less fortunate than them are crushed under their heels...

[The details of what the Regent showed him, endless visions of horrors he could do nothing to fix, isn't something he wants to share with Gray. But it still gnaws at the edges of their connection, eating away at his tattered psyche like an insidious poison. And behind that all, the massive, overwhelming weight of the Regent's will, the weight of bearing witness an entire cosmos of suffering, a weight Barnaby had witnessed and now carried with him everywhere. A bitter sense of compassion and empathy for the very living things the Kenoma seeks to destroy.]

Ultimately, saving a few people won't be able to fix that fundamental flaw. A hero can only respond to those in distress in their path, but they can't rescue a society rotten at its very roots.

That is the misconception I had, Gray.

[comelately]

He -- turned Pleroma?

[ this is a lot of information at once. It would be easy for Gray to lie to him, but for whatever godforsaken reason, he feels like he can trust her. So Eustace turned and proceeded to immediately get killed by his own - Johnny's fears about the Kenoma's attitude towards defectors were well-founded. ]

Was he in contact with anyone on our side? [ a beat. ] What about you and the mina-whatsit guy?

action, middle of sekiseri.

[salvageable]

[ What had meant to be a quick visit to Godsblood had drawn on for longer than intended and Dokja's still not done with his errands. And with night fast approaching, he needs lodgings, but what's a guy to do when he's poor?

The answer is to break into his old Godsblood home. It hadn't been that long since he'd vacated the premises and judging by the outside appearance, it doesn't look like anyone's moved in either? If he does find signs of life inside, he'll simply leave (after maybe swiping a few valuables). Also, "breaking in" is too harsh of a way to put it. Dokja simply has a spare key he'd never returned to the landlord and he uses it now, slipping it into the keyhole without much preamble, though he has to give it a few twists and tugs because the spare key's always acted up like this, before the lock finally gives.

He pushes the door open and steps inside like he owns the place. Very unlike a burglar but also how incredibly bold for a guy who no longer lives here. ]

[comelately]

[ a mild flicker of surprise at his being from Earth being questioned. It's such a strange thing to have to clarify - he's still not used to it. ]

Yeah, I'm from America. Kentucky, specifically. [ as she may have been able to guess from his accent. ] I lived in England for a little while when I was a kid, though.

[gravings]

[ She... has no clue where Kentucky is in the U.S., but she can at least point to the country itself. She gets another blip of surprise when he mentions having been in England. ]

I didn't know you were so well-traveled...

[ He's literally only named two places on Earth, but the U.S. seemed like it was on the other side of the world. Very exotic. ]

I've never been to the States, but I've seen some films. It seems like an exciting place.

[ She says this with a touch of happiness, mostly because all the strange movies she was made to watch are finally paying off. ]

[gravings]

I don't know if he was in contact with anyone.

[ He really didn't tell her anything. She hardly even knew he'd defected when she found out he'd been dissipated. ]

Minegishi... He isn't with me at the moment, but you're the only Pleroma I've spoken to. After what happened in Achamoth, I'm not sure how open anyone is to talking with the other side.

[uproared]

[ She hasn't communed privately with Gray before, but it's strange that it feels so hard to reach her, compared to her experiences speaking with Kaeya and Emet-Selchy. Maybe she's outside of Achamoth, or sleeping, or busy... none of which are Mordred's problem, so it doesn't stop her from pushing past the odd feeling of resistance; her thoughts lightly tinged with annoyance at the extra effort required. ]

I didn't see you at that creature's execution, mouse. Guess you missed the invite.

[ Secretly, though, she's glad Gray wasn't there. Mordred has little problem with brutality, even torture to an extent, but what happened to Estinien, and the pathetic state he was rendered in even before that... she can't imagine Gray would have handled it well. With most other Kenoma, she'd gladly have held their face to the metaphorical fire and forced them to watch, but Gray isn't most Kenoma. What exactly that makes her, Mordred wouldn't know, because she's been avoiding giving it much thought. ]

You haven't gone blind from those injuries, have you? ... Well, even if you have, I've got some stuff I wanna talk to you about. Just tell me where you are, and I'll head over.

[ Know what she hasn't given any thought to at all? The idea of Gray being a traitor. Thanks to the nature of communion, Gray can probably tell that Mordred's attempt to reach out to her is genuine, not driven by any doubt or suspicion of her status. ]