Lyntael watched the group begin to move away, a thoughtful expression working its way across her features. Her stance relaxed again and she shifted to stand straight while the motion led to her hands unconsciously sliding over her hips in a far more emphatic way than was really necessary.
Barely aware of the way she let her hips sway slightly with the pressure, Lyntael frowned, then shook her head and turned to move on as well, continuing in the direction she had been heading before. Rogan's comments about the way the weather behaved around her continued to linger in the back of her thoughts, and jumped forward again now as she strolled along the top of the cliffs, glancing out towards the sea every so often.
Clouds drifted by overhead in grey clumps, moving quickly in response to the quicker winds, higher up, but... for a moment Lyntael closed her eyes again, reaching her senses outwards... but no sign of actual storms or rain. These nets weren't as well maintained as the surface level public networks, pushed down and largely forgotten underneath the newest and safest public net layer – here the beach wasn't always sunny and bright, or the weather fair... but she had to admit that the Rogue beach had a certain... natural wildness to it that felt nice, in its way.
But no storms, not really. At least, certainly not ones that blew up in seconds and faded away again just as quickly after. It couldn't really be something she was doing herself, though, could it? Surely it had to be some interaction with the dilapidated weather subsystems of the Rogue beach net, just being triggered by...
Lyntael paused again, taking a long breath and stilling her mind so she could look more closely at what she was thinking, and why. She knew, if she was honest; some part of her did at least... She knew Rogan was right, and more intrinsically than that, even... Why was her unconscious reaction to deny it, or explain how it might not be her? When had it started? The memory surfaced in response at once and understanding came with it.
The first time, the real first time, had been back in the dark, in the place where broken things fell – the description came forward in her mind unbidden, but it felt right – a place of broken and scattered things, lost in the unformed mass of all that remained closest to the void. The rules were loose, down there; what was real and what wasn't was... fluid. She'd found herself and reclaimed the broken parts of both of her, and then they'd forged something impossible together, from the ruins.
Lyntael let her footsteps drift to a halt, then sat down at the edge of the cliff, letting her feet kick free as she stared out at the turbulent sea. Her mind replayed the conflict; two sets of vision seeing all they didn't have; two broken hearts, screaming their pain at one another, and in the unformed space around them, the storm of their fractured souls crying and blazing bright. A feeling held close, remembered and brought back.
Maybe that was why she had been pretending not to notice? If she'd brought something back from the dark, something that wasn't part of her... was that what her subconscious was worried about? Perhaps. She remembered every sensation that had strained both of her selves in those desperate moments, and the two halves made a complete picture, nothing more. Nothing outside herself. A moment of dissonance in her thoughts made her eyebrows draw down; was there nothing outside that didn't belong? No sense unaccounted? Something else that didn't fit, didn't belong.
She wasn't sure where the questioning thought had come from, but let herself dive into the memories more keenly for a moment anyway. She lay back, eyes closed and spread her arms out on the grass, relaxed even as she let the emotions of the memories roll over her. She had felt such different things, and in some of those moments, the pain had become fear and the desperation not to disappear, and it had become fury and a desire to take what was hers, no matter who she had to take it from... but... in the end each feeling, each attack and shouted demand, and each soothing touch, was something she understood from both sides now, and... As she listened to the crash of the waves far below, and felt the curling breeze flow past her, Lyntael's eyes opened staring up at the sky. No... There was something else.
She let her eyes close again, her head dropping to her chest as she focused inward. Just a feeling, not quite a voice but a sense; a desperate empathy and a consoling presence, there in brief moments between them, lost almost entirely in the building static of their resonance, but always a sense of care that was the other reaching out, no matter which side of the memory she recalled. What was it? A fleeting ephemera perhaps – an echo of self born at the clashing of their souls; something that only wanted togetherness. As she explored her feelings, Lyntael felt sure that some of the thoughts weren't entirely hers, or at least that they came from some part unconscious to her... Something that shouldn't have been, something that didn't belong. She stopped and cornered the thought in her mind, wrapped it up carefully and held it close. No. She knew that feeling; she had only ever felt that way about herself, not others. Not a thing that shouldn't have been; someone who cared. A flash of feeling given form – maybe the truest part of her; the voice that, at the most desperate point of everything still wanted, more than anything, to reconcile and to heal. Something welcome, cherished and not forgotten. Nothing that didn't belong.
Lyntael felt something relax in her chest; her eyes well and spill over with soft tears, but her smile remained as she lifted her head, opened her eyes and stood, taking a fresh breath as she did.
“Rogan...” Her small smile became a grin than couldn't be contained and broke into laughter that was snatched up and carried by the wind as she turned her face to the sky. “I know who I am.”
BreakSwordDamage: 100 + Break + Slashing + Wide Attack