Wolf at Bay

[greyerrant]

Who: Garviel Loken and Meetra Surik
Where: Sagittarius Ward
Summary: The paranoid space marine gets talked into going to war.
Warnings: Wordiness. POWER VIOLENCE.
[Garviel stands atop a factory in the Saggitarius ward, by an exhaust vent, his armor heaving heavily as he gasps for air, having clambered up it to escape the scorpions. To escape everyone. For the first time in his life, his morale has broken. A warrior that has faced off against Demigods, Titans, and the darkness of the Warp itself has run. He looks at his bolter, at his combat knife. And for a moment... he contemplates his dishonor. Such a manifest sin. How can he expiate it? How can he stand by with his brother watching. His brother.... For another astartes stands with the last loyal son tonight, a taller figure in green plate, watching over the shuddering form of the Silent Wolf. He doesn't do anything, just watches Loken in agony, unable to save his friend as Loken was once unable to save him. For he is just another part of Garviel. ]

Comments

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"Listen to yourself, Cerberus," she said, keeping her voice calm even if she couldn't keep her lightsaber out of her hand, ready to deflect whatever that weapon in the hulking man's hand was. "Listen to what fear is doing to your mind."

She doesn't approach closer, fearing she might force him over the ledge. She takes a brief moment to note that she can still, somehow, be concerned for someone who was in all likelyhood an enemy when she felt in such mortal danger herself. That was a good sign. Her mind had not completely gone.

[greyerrant]

"Was it you that ensorceled me, then?" He hesitates at the ledge, his finger on the trigger, between fight, flight, and mindless rage.

"Fear is..."

"My fear..."

"My fear is to fail."

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"You admit you have fear," she said, taking a deep breath and coming near praying to the Force that none of the foreboding she felt was a true premonition of him shooting her.

"Now what will you do with that?"

[greyerrant]

"Only the concept of it! Every man understands the fear of failure. But... mortal fear, the physical sensation of it. It has been removed from me! What is this?"

He almost sounds like he is sobbing inside his armor, extremely distraught with the rush of unfamiliar emotions. Well, be lucky, Meetra, at least it isn't Lust or something.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

She stepped forward. She could be afraid all she liked, but this was someone in pain. She couldn't turn away from that. If she could, she wouldn't be who she was.

"It is fear. You know what it is. A part of you was cut away, you thought for the better, but it came back. I know, because that's what happened to me," she explained. She then took a deep breath.

"After I...well, I once destroyed a world. It wasn't the planet that was important, though, it was the armies I sent crashing down into it. Both of them. Millions of voices cried out in pain at the same time, Cerberus, all from a nod of my head. Do you have any idea what that does to someone who feels things like I do?"

She paused, wondering why she was sharing this with someone else on the verge of a breakdown.

"I...deafened myself. Threw away my connection to the Force like you threw away fear. I tried to blame others, but in the end, it was me, trying to save my sanity after that horror."

[greyerrant]

The bolter lowers. "Yes, I do. I've seen it myself. At Istvaan, I was part of such a thing, a victim of it. The undying amongst the dead. And I've seen psykers enough to know how that must have felt to them. You are.... lucky to be sane at all."

He is quiet for a bit, looking at Meetra, then at his combat blade.

"You will have to carry the weight of the dead. As I have. I am the last loyal son of my Legion." He steps towards her, no threat in his stance. "That's the burden of duty. To carry on, even when everyone else is gone. To see people you cared about sacrificed, to feel their pain, and know you will never see them again. It is the hardest test, and for a time it broke me. I lost my sanity for six months, wandering as the lone Hunter of the damned, Cerberus, not the living warrior, Garviel Loken."

He is quiet for a bit. "Of all those here, I think there are few that can stand with me, and know what I feel. But at the same time, I may be one of the few who can understand you."

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"I know. The Republic, the Jedi, the Mandalorians...maybe I'm even responsible for my commander's actions afterward," she said, taking a deep breath. The past was no longer something she feared. She had defeated it, silenced the echoes by her own hand and with her own mind.

"...I know. I can even sense what you feel, because those senses came back. Patchwork and damaged, but my connection to the Force returned against my will. I had to...feel people again. I had to connect to them again, feel their suffering. Know that, often, I was the one who caused it," she said, quietly. "It almost broke me entirely. That's why I'm telling you this. Just because you cast away a part of yourself doesn't mean you don't have to keep fighting it if you don't want it."

She takes another few steps, close enough to the giant to reach out and touch him (or get decapitated). "You're...unprepared for this fight, but you can win regardless. You and everyone who seeks to protect innocents here have my support, for whatever that's worth, and I know you can defeat your fear."

[greyerrant]

Loken is silent for a moment, trying to decide if he'll cut the witch woman down, or listen to her. In the end, he nods, looking down at her from behind his ruby red eye slits, helm expressionless at always, but for a least a moment a little more peaceful.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"Good," she said, reading his body language more than his mind.

"Now, the thought of going down into the city and fighting this insanity absolutely terrifies me. I think that means it's a good idea," she said, pasting on a confident smile. "How about you?"

[greyerrant]

"We must purge this evil."

He rumbles, which is as close to assent as she's liable to get from him.

[echo_of_a_jedi]

"Close enough."

She turned and looked back toward where they'd come from. Fires were starting in a few places, and she could practically taste the fear and anger in the air.

"Watch my back?"

[greyerrant]

"I was made for such work. Of course."

He puts away his combat knife, drawing his chainsword and bolter.