Log; Complete

[bright-shield.livejournal.com]

When; Monday, March 19
Rating; PG
Characters; Tyr McDohlof_toran & Riou bright_shield
Summary; Tyr chats, Riou angsts, and the fountain acts evil in general.


The fountains- Tyr had only visited them a few times since his arrival to the city, preferring instead to keep to himself and spend what time he had with Ted. Still, when he had gone out, he'd taken a look in a few of them. He'd seen nothing. No pictures of home or of the past or the present, simply water. From what he understood, though, others did, and had been able to use the fountains to their advantage.

Perhaps it was just him. Who knew, though?

A slight smile on his face- no reason, just yet, to be displeased- Tyr sat down at the edge of one of them. The presence he'd been felt earlier in the day was stronger now, more assertive. But perhaps... that wasn't the best way to describe it, no. The words escaped him for that moment, but it was of no matter just then.

Leaning back slightly, letting his fingers trail in the water, Tyr closed his eyes for a moment. The City still confused him, its sights and sounds so different from anything he'd seen; not Toran, nor Dunan, nor Falena and really, it was just something entirely unique to itself. Not- bad, though. It didn't seem to be of that nature.

"Hey, Riou," the rune bearer said, opening his eyes as he straightened. There it was again, the Bright Shield Rune and the teen who bore it. Almost painfully familiar. "I thought I'd see you somewhere around here."

"Tyr!" Riou's steps quickened as he approached the other boy-- no, man. Tyr might appear the same to him, but Riou knew that the other rune bearer was actually from many years in the future.

"It's so good to see a familiar face!" he said as he clasped the other's shoulder with a grin. "It's been awhile-- well, only a few weeks for me, I'm not sure for you, though." Riou paused and his voice lowered. "Umm... have you noticed a large number of people with abnormally long noses wandering around the city today?"

Tyr half shrugged in reply, indicating to Riou to sit down next to him. The boy looked- well, different from the last time he'd seen him, but he'd last seen Riou not too many years back and they'd both been considerably older than Riou was now. They hadn't had an opportunity to talk, then, but it had been interesting. "I think it's a curse day," he replied, shifting slightly. "Some people are saying that your nose will grow longer if you lie."

"Still, I seem to be doing quite alright," he added, a little cheerfully. "There are some who are... quite badly affected. It looks quite inconvenient, so I'd say that's a good thing." Almost absently, the rune bearer fiddled with the glove he still wore on his right hand, welcoming the familiarity of the Bright Shield rune and at the same time slightly uncomfortable with it.

Riou sat down at the edge of the fountain and leaned back as a gentle wind ruffled at his hair. "I-- haven't really been effected by any of the curses since I've arrived here. At least I don't think so. I don't feel any more cursed than usual," Riou said, half in bemusement, as he unconsciously brought his own hand containing the Bright Shield rune up to his chin.

"It's a bit hard to take in all at once," he continued and gestured at the buildings that surrounded them. "How long have you been here?"

"Not very," Tyr replied. "I don't think it's been more than a week or two, but I..." he trailed off, trying to think of how to put it. "I don't really keep track of time any more." He had, when he was younger, but after the years had passed it just didn't seem necessary to. What was another year, after all? Or another war.

He rested his arms on his knees, feeling a bit more comfortable. "You're lucky if you haven't got cursed yet, but my guess will be that it'll probably happen sooner or later. Or if you lie, today." Strange, the nature of those curses, how they affected some and avoided others. And how sometimes they didn't seem to be so much curses as inconveniences, or just plain strange.

Tyr thought about them for a moment, falling silent. The other day- but the past was the past, even in a place with a flow of time as dubious as this. "Have you talked with the others yet?" he started, in an attempt to move the topic to something he felt more at ease with.

"Well, I think I ought to be safe, for today at least." Riou rubbed at his head with a laugh. "As for the others... I've spoken to-- err, well not exactly spoken to, but exchanged words over a glowing window-- with Chris, Frey, Viki, and Ted. Oh, and Jeane as well. She seemed quite disappointed that I didn't join you and the others in her shop during that beer curse."

Nodding and making occasionally helpful noises, Tyr blinked when Riou mentioned 'beer curse'. Beer- that had been the drink, and Jeane-

Oh. Oh, no. "Actually it's probably a good thing you weren't there," he said, smiling in a slightly pained fashion. "Really. Besides, you're a bit young to be drinking, aren't you?" And if nothing else, that much was the truth. So had been Freyjadour, as well, but that didn't actually factor in just then.

Looking aside, Tyr tried not to think about that day. He'd enjoyed himself, to be certain, and he hadn't got too drunk, but still, he had felt that he'd ought to have had better self control. Or Ted had ought to have better self control.

"Mm," he started, trying to change the topic again. "what about Jowy, then?" He hadn't heard that name on the list of people Riou had given. "I thought he wanted to speak with you."

Riou's smile flickered and faded away. The rays of the sun slanted down warmly upon them, the fountain continued to burble merrily behind, and he... he gazed down hard at his gloved hands, fingers interlaced together. "Ah... he has contacted me, but..."

"But...?" Tyr prompted, raising his gaze to look over at Riou. "You've not answered him yet, have you?" Somehow he knew that he was probing, probably pushing the other rune bearer into a conversation he might not want to be holding, but it was important- in a way. If he recalled- hadn't Riou said something once about how Jowy and him were best friends?

Turning towards Riou, Tyr waited for an answer to come when Riou felt ready. There wasn't any need to push too hard, too soon.

". . . I don't think it would be wise for us to interact," Riou replied and fell silent as he allowed his hands to drop to his sides. His gaze wandered past the towering buildings that surrounded the square, past the blue-tinted horizon, perhaps unto something further still.

"Heh," the sound lacked any mirth at all. "After all, lately every time we meet it seems to end with one of us trying to kill the other. One of these times one of us will be successful."

Tyr kept his eyes on Riou, watching as the normally more cheerful teenager closed up, his arms by his side and his eyes looking off. "You- but you don't know that for sure, do you?" he said, contemplatively, remembering just when he'd come from. "You sound so sure that one of you will end up dead."

But he knew, though- he'd seen Riou, Jowy and Riou's sister- what had her name been again? Nanami, he recalled. "Besides, he is your friend, after all. At the very least, just leave him a message."

"He says he wants to end it. This--this does not inspire enthusiasm within me," Riou laughs a bit and presses one gloved hand to his forehead. The right hand which bears Bright Shield.

"I thought the fight might be over for us once we escaped and took refuge in Muse, but then he murdered Anabelle and Muse was destroyed. I thought the war was surely over when Luca Blight was killed and he became King. Shu was suspicious, but I ignored him. I lead them all to that peace conference filled with hope-- such a naive hope-- and he would killed them. All of them. If Shu hadn't prepared, if he hadn't intervened, we would have all died and it would have been my fault, because I brought them there and they followed me."

As the words came tumbling out, one after another, words that he had kept hidden deep within his heart for the past months, his hand grew warmer and warmer, heat licking across the skin until Riou was almost sure he could trace the lines of Bright Shield even above the material of his gloves.

"And even then I thought he might come back at Matilda, when Nanami-- when she died. But he doesn't...he keeps coming after me... and I don't want this, but this is about more than just me and him, or even Bright Shield versus Black Sword. I can't let him kill me, but if he keeps attacking me, I will kill him."

Riou's words crashed to a halt as he seems shocked at what he had said. For a moment Riou stretched his arm out, staring at his hand, before he turned to Tyr with a slight, painful smile. "But... you already know how this ends, don't you?"

Listening to Riou speak- and it all sounded so painfully familiar, he knew, he felt- Tyr's features took on a more serious look as he kept silent and allowed the teen to speak. Riou was right to have doubts; what would have worried Tyr was if he had been too confident in himself, but this- this was too much.

"You don't have to kill him," he said, finally, when Riou stopped. "It's your choice." The words came out perhaps more harshly than he'd intended them too, and he couldn't stop himself from snapping slightly at the teenager. Getting more crabby with age, maybe, he thought, peevishly. "It's always been your choice. Some choices are easier to make than others but running away- that's the choice of a coward."

He knew that all too well. You couldn't run away from fate- you could make your own fate for yourself, your own destiny, but you couldn't ever run away.

Looking away for a moment, Tyr frowned slightly, before he forced himself to relax. His shoulders dropped slightly and his expression was almost melancholy as he tilted his head, glancing down at Riou's hand. "Even though I may know what has happened," he said quietly, like an afterthought, "telling you won't change anything- and I'd rather you find the strength to face the future for yourself."

"And Jowy- he still thinks of himself as your friend. If you no longer consider him as such, the least you should do is to face him about it."

"I... don't know. I don't believe that we're shackled to our fate, but in this..." Riou grabbed at his hand, fingers painfully digging in. "Is my will alone really strong enough to overcome it, when Jowy seems determined to go to that fate?

It seems the only thing I can do now to stop Shield and Sword, is to make certain they never meet. I know that I can't keep this up forever-- but back home I had to stay in Dunan and protect it, and so it was inevitable that I end up fighting Jowy. Here-- there's nothing to fight for here, nothing to force a confrontation..."

Nothing except us and...he hasn't changed. He's not sorry for what he's done. And now he's going to end it.

Riou bit down on the inner lining of his mouth. That was enough. He hadn't wallowed during the war, he certainly wasn't going to start now. He was behaving oddly enough as it was. He wished he could blame it on a curse but-- Something had broken in him when Jowy had betrayed him, when Jowy had tried to kill him, when Nanami had died... but going on about it was not going to bring it-- or them-- back. He took a deep breath.

"Is this the Commander of the Dunan Unification Army?" Tyr asked, softly. "Riou, you're hardly weak, and I have faith in you." He wanted to reassure the teenager, to tell him that his will was strong enough, had been strong enough- but telling him wouldn't allow Riou to know it for himself, not truly. What Frey had said earlier about Jowy applied to his friend as well, and that much, Tyr had acknowledged.

He sighed, lowering his hand. "And what seems to be is not always what really is. You have a choice, Riou. Just- remember that." He'd been a bit harsh earlier, but he'd felt the need to, with Riou like this.

Had he ever been in such a state? It was all too close for comfort now, Tyr felt. He'd wished, so many times, that he could just take away the rune.

Is my will strong enough?

Just how many Tenkais had asked themselves that question- and how many who weren't Tenkais, as well? Falling silent, Tyr interlinked his fingers as he watched Riou out of the corners of his eyes.

Unable to reply, Riou turned away slightly, his gaze falling upon the waters of the fountain. Sunlight glimmered and flickered across its surface, sparkled and shimmered, and deep within the waters depths something twisted and unfurled. Riou froze, every muscle taut, as an image slowly coalesced.

The churn of water. The sight of an X where a promise was made, oh so long ago. And Bright Shield faces off against Black Sword. The ground churns upwards as a rain of a thousand swords plummets from the skies, eviscerating everything within its path. A tiny Riou within the waters depths is down upon one knee, Bright Shield's aura flickering around him, trying to heal and protect as Jowy towers above, standing completely unharmed, face devoid of all emotion.

A brilliant flash of light flares upwards, the sign of the shield rising into the heavens--Forgiver Sign?-- but then it freezes, collapses upon itself. Instead the shield defends, again and again, against rifts that opened up beneath feet, and waves of darkness that devoured all light, and then another fall of swords, greater still...

It breaks. The shield shatters and Riou falls to the ground. And rises no more. The Rune of Beginnings has the beauty of the shield and sword. And somewhere in the distance, a Highland banner is raised once again as a scream breaks out across the country...

Riou lurched to his feet, stumbling back from the water, which had become nothing more than water once again. "Did-- did you just see that?"

Eyes wide, Tyr watched as something- a picture? Moving- appeared in the fountain's depths. He'd found out what had happened, but that hadn't been the same as seeing it, if that was what he was seeing now...

That isn't what happened, he thought, unable to look away. I know-

And yet it seemed so real. So terribly, terribly real. That Jowy would act like that was comprehensible, even possible, but he'd- he'd die, Tyr realized. His rune would kill him, anyway.

"I saw it," he finally replied, when it faded away and he stood, staring into the water. "These fountains..."

"They lie. But sometimes they tell the truth," Riou muttered, mostly to himself. "I think--I think I had better go now," he said and backed away from the fountain rather faster than he had once approached.

"I'll... see you later, Tyr" Riou called over his shoulder as he adeptly merged into the crowds that thronged around the square.