Try Again
Apprehension had been as constant a companion to Keeva as her own eidolon when she’d initially made her way to the upper floors of the Avalon. An excruciatingly awkward encounter with Fiona had only put her further on edge after the unexpected appearance and battle with Móirín, and coupled with her witnessing Fiona’s brush with death, and adding even further to that with Keeva’s frantic effort to save Lancelot from a similar fate during that battle… It was so much. Too much. She could scarcely keep her thoughts from toppling over themselves in how dizzyingly overwhelmed she was. At the very least, she’d wanted to do something useful in her effort to escape her guilty conscience, and ensuring Tiarnán was actually okay seemed like the most reasonable option given everything that had just happened. So here she sat, begrudgingly holding a cup of tea she was too embarrassed to refuse while stuck in a place she hardly wanted to be in.
And then, as if fate found her circumstances to be funny and wanted to send her on one final push towards utter ruin, her eyes fixate on Tiarnán and Móirín’s joined hands, sending all of her thoughts crashing down around her as every façade she’d haphazardly thrown up shattered in a single instant. Her attention turns to their faces, seemingly unbothered, then their words, the final blow that cuts as sharp as a knife right through her soul.
It was love. It was always love.
This isn’t fucking fair.
She can feel herself wanting to crumble on the spot, further adding to the guilt that had made a fine home within her soul. Shouldn’t she be happy that Tiarnán can hold his beloved’s hand? That their love for one another is enough to overcome any discomfort they might face? Shouldn’t she be supportive, rather than filled with bitterness? Envy?
Had all of her love been devoured by hate?
Her world becomes a blur, her thoughts racing as everything around her seems to slow to a crawl. Nothing felt right, a cacophony of color and sound that meant nothing to her. She needed to get out. Get out, run as far away as she could.
I can’t do this anymore.
She’s only vaguely aware that she’s speaking, but she can’t hear anything over the sickening buzz of her own guilty thoughts, so intense it’s blinding. A tiny part of her hopes there was an apology thrown into whatever she said, that she didn’t accidentally break one of Tiarnán’s teacups, but the rest of her is too upset to care, and then more upset that she doesn’t care.
I’m sorry.
Every footstep is like a jolt of thunderous noise in her mind as she sprints away from Tiarnán’s room, but even that is not enough to drown out her thoughts.
I’m so sorry.
In one moment, Keeva had been sitting at Lancelot’s side, relatively fine considering the circumstances if not understandably anxious, and in the next she’s suddenly on her feet and shouting something he can scarcely understand in a near frantic state. By the time Lancelot realizes what’s going on she’s already gone, but the eidolon is quickly on his feet and out the door after her, leaving no time for even a scant apology.
She’d already made it a significant distance down the hall by this point, but he quickly gains on her. "Keeva?” Lan tries to get her attention, speaking first out loud, then through their mental link. ‘Keeva, talk to me.’
She speaks, not in response to his worried call, but rather with a quiet hiss of words he cannot quite hear and a sudden jerk of her hand, an action he instantly recognizes as her casting a spell. In the next moment he can feel their link go muted, her constant presence more distant in blatant evidence of what she had cast.
"Keeva!" he exclaims, quickening his pace to close what little distance remained between them. As he reaches for her arm, his gloved hand closes around nothing but empty air where Keeva stood not a second before, the distinct sound of a pop ringing in his ears. She’s gone, leaving him standing alone in the hallway.
With him now unfettered from her, she could theoretically be anywhere within Hadreon, and all at once he feels panic seize him. Lancelot was well aware of just how emotionally fragile she was right now. If she decided to do something stupid, he wouldn’t be able to protect her.
He needed to find her.
‘Keeva, please. Please,’ The eidolon mentally pleads, trying to choke back his anxiety long enough to keep from adding to her own overload of emotions. ‘Keeva. Keeva, where are you?’ His attempts to reach her through their link are met with a brief jolt of guilt, of sadness that is quickly stifled, and then silence. Despite the absence of words, her message was clear: leave me alone.
Lancelot slams the side of his fist into the wall, uttering every curse in every language he knew. He’d encouraged her to come here, and like everything else lately, of course something had to go catastrophically wrong.
“I’m so fucking stupid.”
It was going to do him little good to stand there and curse. After overcoming the worst of his initial panic and frustration, the next few minutes are spent frantically running through the Avalon as fast as his legs will allow, looking everywhere that Keeva could be on the ship. He figures that it would be most likely for her to stay where she was most familiar, so after checking the usual spots — the kitchen, the shrine, and then their house — he then spends the next hour looking all through the forest layer in the faintest hope that she might be somewhere within. If not, if not… In the least of things, he would possibly feel a pull from their link once the unfettering ends if he was close enough, or be killed outright if she were even farther than that, but in any case he would have confirmation of her whereabouts at that point.
Whether she would be willing to resummon him is a different story, however, and although she was nearly always willing to comply with his requests, she may not be so inclined if she’s feeling bad enough. The situation with Fiona comes to mind immediately; even when she was stabbed, she would not let him out and forced him to remain in her soul, unable to do anything. He couldn’t protect her if he was trapped in her mind. No, he had to find her before time was up. He had to help her.
It was a vow he had taken as an eidolon, but one he honored as her friend. To protect her, always. He would not fail her again.
Running through the plants and trees was proving to slow him down far too much for his liking, so he eventually makes the switch to flight. Time seems to fly alongside him all too quickly, however, and he can feel that panic returning, building upon itself more and more with every passing second. Any mental prodding he attempts is met with continued silence from Keeva, but he tries regardless. If nothing else, it lets her know that he’s thinking of her. At least, he hopes it’s what she takes from that.
Somehow, despite all the terror screaming inside him, there is a sudden thought that occurs to him amongst the noise; he recalls a faint memory of a trek they’d embarked on one day when she’d expressed interest in exploring the forest layer, and then Keeva’s quiet voice. She’d pointed out to him a specific group of flowers and vines, commenting that the arrangement of them, they’d reminded her so distinctly of the plants she’d had growing on her home in Tír na nÓg, and how much she missed those flowers sometimes. It had been a brief exchange, one he hadn’t given too much thought to at the time, but given how much she’d expressed feeling homesick lately… Perhaps she would be there. He hopes his hunch is right. It’s the only idea he has left.
Please be there, Keeva.
It doesn’t take much longer for him to arrive at that spot once he gets his bearings, retracing the journey to the best of his recollection. As he lands amidst the overgrown flowers, his eyes quickly scan his surroundings but to his dismay, she doesn’t appear to be there after all. Fuck.
Fuck.
Maybe she was still somewhere on the ship, but there was always the possibility that he was completely wrong about that too. What if he was wrong? Was she really somewhere else in Hadreon? Where could she be? What if she was in danger somewhere and he couldn’t do anything?
His thoughts suddenly come to a screeching halt as he happens to catch the subtlest trace of movement from the corner of his eye, and all at once his attention is caught on the last bit of hope he has. He turns fully to catch a better look and finally, finally he spots her; blended in amongst the foliage lay Keeva’s still form, her the slightest quivering of her wings the only observable movement. Laying there she looks as though she could be a flower herself.
In that moment, the sight of her was sweeter than any flower he’d ever seen.
The relief that washes over him in that instant is so intense he would cry if he had the capability to do so. It takes every ounce of willpower in his body to not scoop her up in a crushing hug right then and there, but startling her was not going to do her any favors. Instead, he slowly approaches, stops to move the plants, to make an open space in the plants, then lays on the ground facing her. An eye opens as he settles in place, sees him, then closes again as she curls even tighter into herself as if to make herself invisible within the blanket of flowers. He makes no attempt to speak, and neither does she.
There aren’t words he can say that would give her the comfort she deserves, so he waits.
Eventually their link is restored in full as the spell that unfettered him fades away, and although she was still shielding her thoughts and feelings from him, it isn’t much longer after that when she steals another glance as though checking if he were still there. He offers a blink, and the faintest trace of a smile.
“Are you ready to talk?” he asks, finally ending the stretch of silence between them.
The hesitation in her is obvious, but does not last long. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she counters flatly, what little expression he could see betraying how gloomy she still was despite her empty tone. “Why don’t you check on someone else? I’m fine.”
His eyes narrow the slightest bit, then close as he feigns a sigh. “Well, you see, I would,” he says, waving a hand almost dismissively, “except you’re the only person left for me to check on.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she mumbles, turning her back to him.
He frowns, dropping the carefree façade that was clearly more irritating to her than helpful right now. “Keeva,” he urges as he pushes himself upright, staring steadily at her tiny form, “you are the only person on this ship who needs me to check on them. That is a fact.”
“What about Iris?” she counters sharply, glancing at him from over her shoulder. “Or Alex, or–”
“What about you, Keeva?” He gazes at her with obvious concern. “When are you going to let someone care about you for a change? Your friends are worried about you. I’m worried about you.”
She grimaces, letting her head drop back down so he could no longer see her face. He waits in silence, and just when he’s about to speak, she finally replies, “I’m fine, Lan. I’m fine.”
“If you were actually fine,” he chides, “I wouldn’t have felt the need to search half the Avalon to find you.”
Her wings twitch, and in the next moment she’s turned back to face him, pushing herself up to sit upright. “You didn’t have to do that, Lan.”
“Well, you weren’t exactly telling me where you were! I was terrified for you, Keeva.” Lancelot runs his hand through his bangs, gripping at his head so tight some of the hair comes undone from his ponytail. He tries to keep his emotions tamped down, but frustration bubbles to the surface despite his best efforts. “What was I supposed to do? Sit on my ass and pray to every single pretender that you were safe? You teleported away! I count my fucking blessings that you were still on the ship instead of the middle of Hadreon somewhere!” He stops, noticing a strange look of fear that flashed across her face. “What?” he questions flatly, an uncomfortable knot forming in his chest. She doesn’t immediately respond, averting her eyes, and he presses with sudden urgency, “Keeva, please answer me.”
She falters, but complies with his request for an answer. “I…. I did. Leave the ship.”
His entire body tenses, and any self control he had slips as he shouts, “What? Keeva, you what?” He instantly regrets his loss of composure as she winces away from him. You fucking idiot, she’s not the one you’re angry at. Do better. “Keeva,” he tries again after a brief silence, voice dropping to a pained whisper. “Keeva, what if you’d gotten hurt? Would you have called me to you? Where did you even go?”
Her fingers dig into her arms so hard they meet her mannequin, her face scrunched up so much her eyes are slivers of green. She can’t bring herself to meet his gaze, her words coming so haltingly she has to stop, try to recompose herself, but even still her voice is frail as she forces herself to reply, “I-I went… I went to, um, Ellara. Near where we… we came here. Hadreon.”
“Keeva,” he starts, but she swiftly interrupts.
“I just… I just wanted to go. Home. I wanted to go home! But I… I couldn’t do it. I thought about it. A lot. Almost did, but I… I couldn’t. You kept… talking to me, and I felt more guilty about it, and I… I-I just… I came back to the ship. Here.”
Every word is like a vice that chokes him more and more. “Home?” he repeats, to which she nods. Her homesickness was even worse than he’d known, but to go that close to the loyalist sidhe, to potential danger that he knows she’s well aware of… “You– We can’t go back there, Keeva. You know we can’t.”
That seems to set something off within her, and all of a sudden the restrained emotions within her explode all at once. “And I can’t do this anymore, Lan!” she screams, burying her face in her knees. “Everything was better back home! Everything! I was helpful there! I was happy there!”
“They… Surely they must know you’re a rebel now, Keeva. They might kill you if you try,” he tries to explain, but the moment the words leave his mouth, he feels nothing but the still building frustration and distress from his summoner.
“Like what you already said you would do to me?” she snaps, lifting her head to stare pointedly into his eyes. “What does it matter if they kill me, Lancelot? I’m never going to be able to help anyone like I am now! Not since I’ve changed into this!” She gestures angrily to herself. “At least I’d still have a chance at being what I’m meant to be if I was reborn now! You said it yourself, it’d be better if I do it before it’s too late for me!”
A stab of guilt makes him feel suddenly sick. Why did he ever tell her that? What the fuck had he been thinking? "Keeva, not every word I say should hold weight, especially if you’re only going to take them and place them upon your shoulders like it’s your burden to carry,” he says, but Keeva appears unswayed by his words.
“If I can’t hold you to your word, how can I trust anything you say?” she shouts.
His gaze is firm, but his voice strained as he answers, “I know what you’re asking for, and I won’t do that, Keeva. I refuse.”
That flame that had been ignited within her wavers like a candle in the wind, and he can clearly see the conviction that had been fueling her fading fast with his refusal. “If… If I commanded you?” She suddenly cuts her hand through the air as one would with a sword, leaning forward with the movement. Her eyes are more frantic but steadily staring into his own with expectation. “You… Would you do it then? Lan?”
His sword hand tightens into a fist, and he makes a concerted effort to move it even further from the weapon on his hip. “No.”
She looks at him helplessly, shoulders slumping. “I… I want to go home, Lancelot. Please.”
His voice is sharp but pleading, consumed by a pain he can’t bear any longer, “Stop it, Keeva! I can’t lose you too!” He suddenly reaches for her hand, gripping it so tightly he’s trembling from the effort. “I can’t. I can’t do it, Keeva! I was a fucking fool to even suggest I could before, but I can’t lose you. I can’t.”
Finally, this seems to be enough to break through her adamant desire as she can’t bring herself to demand more from him, instead staring with wide, scared eyes. Realization at how far she’d pushed Lancelot.
"You're doing the exact things you discouraged me from doing, Keeva,” he continues, earning a pained wince from the summer sidhe as her head drops to stare at the ground. “It isn't right! It wasn’t right when I would do it, and it’s not any more correct when you do it! Would you not be worried for me if I were doing exactly what you are currently? I know you would be, because you have been!” He pauses for a single moment, but does not wait for her to respond. “I care about you, Keeva, and I’m not going to help you make the exact same mistakes I’ve made. You're never going to move forward if you continue following the footsteps left behind me."
What little fire that had remained within the summer sidhe dies completely, and within the broken pieces that made up Keeva in this moment, he could see slivers of himself staring back at him. The isolation, pushing anyone away no matter how much they wish to help because he’s not worth the effort anyway. The spiraling self-loathing. The disregard of his own well-being for the slightest taste of helping someone, of redemption. All of it a reflection of what his influence had imprinted on her.
His hands had once been gentle, many lifetimes ago. Perhaps he had fooled himself into believing they might still be yet, but a hand wielding a sword was always bound to cause harm. He had sworn to protect Keeva and instead he had pushed her blindly into the very danger he meant to save her from.
His eyes soften with shame, and for a brief instant, he finds himself unable to meet her gaze. “This is all my fault.”
Immediately she’s put on the defensive, unwilling to relinquish her burden of guilt to him. “No, no you… You didn’t do anything wrong, Lan, it’s my own fault–”
“No, Keeva,” he interrupts, frustration of his own clear in his tone. Keeva quickly goes silent, and Lan continues, “This is my fault. I put that idea in your mind when you never once would have considered it before, all because I–” His voice falters, his eyes betraying just how pained he is as he continues, “I was… afraid. Afraid of losing you in the same way I lost another I cared about. It was wrong. I was wrong, and all it did was make the very thing I feared all the more likely.”
“But… But I–”
His voice softens as he gently takes her hand in his own, eyes filled with a sincerity he reserved for save few in this life, or any life he’d ever lived. “I’m sorry, Keeva. I’m so sorry.”
Her shoulders stiffen, eyes flitting from side to side as though looking for something. An excuse, an argument, anything to dispute him, but there was nothing to be found. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but stops herself, and for a moment Lancelot is certain she might retreat completely in the absence of a defense. To his surprise, however, the uncertainty gives way to the most pained look he’s ever seen in Keeva’s eyes before she throws her arms around him in an agonized wail. Her form is unstable under his hands, somewhere between wispy and melting, almost as though her entire soul had become tears that barely held themselves together under the weight of her sadness. He would wait as she crumbled to pieces, ready to help her put them back together again no matter how long it may take.
It takes a long time before she begins to come down from the height of her anguish, but eventually she falls silent, face buried in his shirt as her form slowly stabilizes into something slightly more solid. He gives her a slight squeeze as she puts her hand over his, weakly returning the gesture.
“I know I cannot take it back as much as I wish I could,” he says quietly, “but I will do all I can to do better by you in the future. I promise.”
“You’ve been better.” Although her voice is faint, there’s a certainty in her words. “Already. You have been, Lan.”
His embrace tightens around her, face buried in her hair. “Then if someone like me can do better, believe me when I say that you can too.”
He feels her wings twitch against his arms, and she whispers, “What if I can’t?”
“Then I take your hand, help you to your feet, and we try again. Just as you’ve done for me. Just as you do for your friends.”
There’s a brief shudder of uncertainty he feels from her, but despite this, he also feels her nod.
“Try again,” she repeats softly. “I’ll… I’ll try.”